hullO! i've finally come back. along with my thoughts and opinions are perks and um, NONperks. MAJOR NONPERKS from the trip. as you know, i went on a trip with my college to visit UC's and Cal State's in the northern area.
day 01: met at school w/ the group at 6:45am. of course, there was major lagging involved, so most everyone came at 7:30am. (and i thought I was running late!) then we finally got off at 7:40ish, and we drove for about 4 hours? we finally hit our first stop, Cal State Channel Islands. relatively new. it has tons of history behind it. it used to be a mental hospital, a shelter for abused children, and an old military base. whew! it was a little freaky to me to know that it had once been a mental institute? i donno, i SAW the rooms that were once padded... scary!! anyhoo, i wasn't much impressed with the school. the tour guide sure made great effort to impress though, and she did a good job... but it's just that, there's only so much you can hide. as of now, there are no freshmen at the college and it only consists of juniors and senior college students. fall 2003 will be the first year they will start admitting freshmen students. from then on, we had lunch and drove ON to santa cruz! we stayed the night at 'best inns' which i can assure you that it wasn't one of the better places we stayed at. anyways, it took us a good 6 hours to get to santa cruz. so we were pretty much puckered out. we were all starving and we searched and searched for a place to eat...... there was NOTHING. nothing!! nada. we almost walked out to the pier, but we gave up and went back to the vans. we did manage to find a restraunt an hour later. the food wasn't fatastic, but the service was. which made the food endurable. our waiter was great! totally fab. never had such a polite one at that. afterwards, we went back to our not so nice hotel and i shared a room w/ one very um. strange person. and yes, she was more than slightly irritating. she seemed to think of herself quite highly, and any chance she got, she butted herself to the center of attention of any guys that she could see. i swear, she thought she was just so motherfucking great! and you know how i feel about people like that. and trust me, she wasn't a sight for sore eyes. she was more like the cause of them. ugh.
day 02: in the morning... we saw UC Santa Cruz!!! *sigh* i think going back there a second time made me fall even more in love w/ it. it is SO GORGEOUS. more gorgeous than i had ever remembered it. it totally blew me away. it was nice and sunny out too! god it was beautiful! some of the other students didn't seem to think so? hmm. i guess they don't like the outdoors. (idiots!!) anyways, here's a picture of our group at santa cruz. of course you can't see the beauty of it from this badly taken picture... but anyways.. that's beside the point. fingers seem to be a magnet to that area on my camera for some odd reason....
then, santa cruz fed us in college 8. UCSC has 10 colleges right now.. and i really like college 8. the housing is EXPENSIVE there.... :/ er.. but i <3 their bus system, and i love the outdoors. i think it will get me in shape if i went there, all those hills and stuff. after we ate, we went off to Cal State Montery Bay. which was also another older once military base. that school has only 3,500 students at the moment, for they too are also fairly new. it only costs $950 to go there a semester! i thought that was pretty cheap compared to the other schools.. SC being $1400 per quarter.. (keeping in mind that there are only 3 quarters, not including summer school.... and only 2 semesters at CSUMB.) and if you become an RA at the school, you get FREE DORMING AND FREE MEAL PLANS! how crazy is that? i wonder if i could do that for SC..... that's totally awesome. but personally, that school was NOT me.. eHH.. then we stopped by San Luis Obispo (not the school, the city!! even though i would have liked so see that as well..) and we ate at this restraunt called 'apple farm' or something? i can't quite remember, but it was really good!! my meal was called, 'turkey something...' but, it was like a slice of really thick bread on the bottom, then turkey on top, and mashed potatos and gravy on top of everything!! it was SO good. i had every bite. the only thing i didn't like about the restraunt was that it smelled like apples. i mean, how can you enjoy turkey and mashed potatos with the smell of apples filling your nose? warm COOKED apples. eww.. i don't remember exactly, but at mimi's cafe, i went there with a friend once and he got some weird apple stuff w/ his breakfast... and it was NASTY. warm apple?! god. i hate warm apple anything..! deeeeeeesgusting. anyways, after that we went to Santa Barbara, and we stayed at the holiday inn express on state st. and yes, it was NICE! a very small, but modern hotel. i really liked my stay. state st. was very nice as well. it looks clean you know? not like the streets on Santa Cruz. the only thing similar are the homeless people.
day 03: we went to see UC Santa Barbara. and WOW. i thought it was pretty nifty! very much more modern then all the schools we had seen. i love the bike system. i think that's cooL! the tour guide said that they even ride their bikes when it rains! wow.. i wonder how i would be on balance.. heh.. here's a picture...
that school is for sure not going to grow anymore in student size. they have 20,000 enrolled students! 900 faculty. SHEESh. it was a very pretty school, and now that i've seen both UCSC and UCSB... i'm truly torn between the two. i can't say that i like one more than the other... how can you compare the two? they are SO different in their own ways. aiiee.... i think i'm even more confused... if that could even be more possible! i just don't know? well... now that i'm back on day 03.. i'm glad to be home. the trip was good but also a bit annoying... people wise i mean. but i did meet some other very nice girls like amy and marianna. ash was a cool guy toO! kelly is hilarious. she cracked me up. it was nice to meet a different counsler as well. she was really sweet. anyways, i'm pretty numbered at the moment.. so i'm going to getting more fOood!! and resting up.... oh yeah, and start freaking out about my chemistry test. god, i can't wait till my general chem is OVER!! i'm just waiting for organic. seriously. i'm not scared b/c i like drawing!! better than freaking memorizing concepts. ughHh.. or doing calculations. BLAH!! blah to school work!! good night.
~karen
p.s. we stopped by an outlet mall and a cd store was going out of business and i finally got the 'moulin rouge' soundtrack! and i also got another cd by the juliana theory! 'music from another room'. lovely work. it was all on sale too.
p.s. OH! and i got a lovely banana slug doll from UCSC. it's SO cute! i <3 my slug. �
Moving - Sunday, Mar. 02, 2008
Rambles and Kansas! - Thursday, Feb. 07, 2008
In Manhattan, Kansas! - Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008
Minnesota! - Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008
First Interview!!! - Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2007
