I\u2019m basically a child. And what do children love? Snapchat. While I wouldn\u2019t say that I love Snapchat, I must confess that I do \u201csnap.\u201d Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.<\/p>\n
Sitting in a cafe, I get a notification from a person I was very close with in high school. For privacy, I\u2019m going to make up a fake garbage school. Let\u2019s call it the \u201cSan Diego State University.\u201d Anyways, this guy and I have what I would call a Snapchat relationship \u2014 a dwindling one at that.<\/p>\n
So my friend who goes to the \u201cSan Diego State University\u201d sent me a snap and I responded, not with a photo of my face \u2014 ew \u2014 but with the surroundings of this local underground cafe near campus \u2014 it\u2019s called Caffe Strada, you have got to check it out. It was a quick photo, nothing to write home about, just of the people I\u2019m sitting with. He opens the snap right away, and I see his dumb little Bitmoji pop up and down as he workshops a comment.<\/p>\n
He replies: \u201cso berkley.\u201d And knowing this man, this was not a compliment.<\/p>\n
I furrowed my brow, confused by what he meant, but after I looked at the two people I was sitting next to \u2014 Exhibit A: my bobbed roommate, who took a gap year to work on Kamala Harris\u2019 campaign and live in New Zealand; and Exhibit B: a Birkenstocked, nose ring-wearing multi-instrumentalist, I realized maybe I did know what he meant. This scene is very Berkeley.<\/p>\n
Months later, I was informed through the \u201ctwinkvine\u201d that people from back home were discussing me. I can\u2019t escape them, even when I am in Berkeley. Sitting on the disgusting couch of a frat guy who is from the same neighborhood as me, I was told that friends of friends had been deliberating. It was a fact that no one loves to hear from old friends: I had, allegedly, changed.<\/p>\n
Changed? Moi? That doesn\u2019t sound right.<\/p>\n
OK, I may have done that. But I mean, that makes sense. I moved from an echo chamber of a coastal peninsula in San Diego to living 30 minutes from San Francisco. I went from spending three hours after school every day at a predominantly white rowing club to attending one of the most diverse universities. Change is bound to happen.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, that\u2019s not even what they were talking about. \u201cIt\u2019s because you\u2019re in touse,\u201d the frat guy told me. Oh, it\u2019s the sorority. Awesome.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, when I hear the mocks from my friends back home about joining my so-called sisterhood, I meet them all with the same pretentious, vague and self-righteous answer of: \u201cIt\u2019s different at UC Berkeley; you wouldn\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
And for the most part, I stand by that. However, I don\u2019t think they resonate with that answer.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if you keep up with my column, but you may remember me mentioning the deplorable going-out scene for underclassmen beyond the frats, a huge part of my decision to go Greek.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s true, Greek life is different here than at other schools. We still have some of the bad qualities obviously. However, there is a lot of diversity within our system in contrast to those in Southern state schools. I may be \u2014 or am \u2014 very biased here, but there are actually a lot of normal, down-to-earth chicas that are just here for a good time.<\/p>\n
But I, for one, think everything is different at UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n
Every time I talk to people back home in sunny San Diego, I am met with the look. You know the look. You\u2019re talking to a group of people, and someone says something just a tad off, so you lock eyes with the person you\u2019re closest with in the conversation to be like, \u201cSay what?\u201d Yeah, that. I get that.<\/p>\n
I can order a green tea, and they\u2019ll say it\u2019s so Berkeley. My outspoken opinions on the state of the world: Berkeley. Those new shoes: extremely Berkeley.<\/p>\n
Everything is boiled down to one quality that is inherently Berkeley. Are you calling me the city, or are you actually calling me a tree-hugging liberal? The jury is still out on that one.<\/p>\n
There is something about this inherent quality that they don\u2019t want to actually speak to. Something that\u2019s out there. Something woke, maybe. I don\u2019t know, I’m still trying to figure it out, and I\u2019ll let you know when I do, but in the meantime, I think we all get the general idea of what \u201cso berkley\u201d means.<\/p>\n
All in all, I\u2019m OK with changing. It\u2019s natural.<\/p>\n
But, am I changing, or am I \u2014 just maybe \u2014 growing? Leaving home, becoming my own person and meeting better people may just allow me to shape and nurture my true self.<\/p>\n
Maybe not. I might just be getting more pretentious because my surroundings are saturated with pretentious people, and that is what they are referring to.<\/p>\n
And you know what? You\u2019re right. I am very Berkeley. F— \u201cSan Diego State University.\u201d Go Bears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m basically a child. And what do children love? Snapchat. While I wouldn\u2019t say that I love Snapchat,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144,116217],"class_list":["post-265627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-the_greek_theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}