New Apartment New Life

Hi Friends,
Wanted to let everyone know I've already got my life in San Diego all hashed out.
I, by sheer luck, got off the University's subsidized apartment waiting list. Usually students have to wait until their second year to get these apartments but since I got in so early I got on the waitlist back in October and it just so happened my turn came up.

My apartment is five minutes from campus in a fairly newly built complex with two small swimming pools, a jacuzzi, tennis courts, a small workout room and a study lounge. There's unlimited parking -- BIG change from life at UCLA -- for me and all my friends included in the rent, and there's even a security guard that goes around all night. It's a gated community and it's very very San Diego in atmosphere and attitude in the sense that it's quiet, shady (not as in sketchy but as in many palm trees) and laid back.

You can check out it's website at http://hds.ucsd.edu/hsgaffil/ljds.html

My roommates are nice peeps: there's Jack Bierle who's getting a PhD in Organic Chemistry at the Scripps Institute which is supposed to be the big-league of chemistry research. I know it sounds really nerdy but he's actually nothing like my college o-chem TA's. I met this fellow while I was at Strasbourg visiting my friend Bethanie.
Then there's Jordan who's a third-year undergrad. He's one of my former residents and unicamp counselor's friend's boyfriend and though I don't know much about him, I'm fairly confident he's sane and will be nice to live with.

and that's it on my new life.
Classes start June 21st for the summer program and end august 13th. Then the real academic year starts August 31st and ends in June.

Arriving in Texas

Well, my roommate Dinnah had her wedding and I said good bye to all of my friends in France. It was really sad leaving because I felt like my life had just set up really well there: great friends and roommates, nice job with extra side jobs, my own hang out places with sentimental value, and I just had gotten to know the city really well. But I came into this thing knowing it was temporary and unfortunately it was time to leave.

I feel lately as if my life has been in a constant state of flux this past year. First it was about saying good bye to UCLA. Then I focused on settling in San Francisco, making new friends there only to yet again say good bye. And finally, hardest of all, adjusting to France only to again say good bye.

okay enough of this sentimental cheesy crap. For I soon had a gross - and I mean gross in the sense of disgusting not big -- awakening: America is so freakin' fat.

My plane lands in Dallas for a layover and while waiting in the terminal for my connnecting flight, I walk past a McDonald's where it is literally packed. Every table has some fat ass scarfing down big macs and supersized french fries. I guess everything really is much bigger in Texas, not always a good thing.

Once I arrive back in LA, I hear about a movie called "Supersize Me" that's about some guy who goes on a 30-day all-McDonald diet. My friends and I went to the movie expecting to be a bit shocked. But we were appalled (I think that's misspelled) by what we saw. The guy in the movie put on 25 pounds in 30 days and he was on the verge of a heart attack and liver failure. Granted you don't always have to eat the crap he ate in the movie everytime you go to McDonald, but it's true that some people actually do. I mean when you see fat people here, they can be REALLY fat. Those kind of people hardly exist in Paris. When you walk down the street or are even sitting in a McDo there, if you look around you might at the most see maybe 20% of the people there are overweight and of teh people who are overweight usually not a single one of them would be "obese." I mean either they're so shunned that they don't leave their homes or obese people just don't exist there all that much.

Anyways, the French eating habits have become a part of my routine and I've actually found myself much leaner lately. But next time you see obese people scarfing down big mac's just remember, this is a product of our fast-food culture.

If anyone would like to explore this subject in greater detail, I highly recommend reading "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schloeser and watching "Supersize Me" by Morgan Sperlman.