Opinion

Congratulations, incoming Anteaters, and welcome to UC Irvine! As you can probably anticipate, the best way to begin your love affair with UCI is at SPOP, the “mandatory” Student/Parent Orientation Program. But we hope that you’ll realize that it’s okay to not like SPOP; in fact, it’s okay to hate it because, when you really think about it, SPOP has very little to do with what UCI is about.

From beginning as a Layout intern to becoming Managing Editor, I’ve seen UCI through the eyes of the New University for three years of highs and lows. Though it hasn’t always been a stroll through the park, I’ve loved my time at the New U because it’s given me the opportunity to meet people all over campus, to talk with administrators and student leaders and to learn about everything from budgets to athletics.

How does one adequately condense four years into 1,000 words? How do you capture the salient without missing out on the hilariously uncouth? It’s been one heck of a ride as Editor-in-Chief of the New University this year; here are some parting thoughts.

If you were expecting a nice, juicy editorial section per usual, I’m sorry to disappoint you. This is the big boo-hoo section where every departing editor bares his or her soul for all to see. If I were you, I would certainly turn the page. I could not think of one institution that I would care less to read the behind the scenes of than the New University.

Standing on the bridge leading away from the not-yet-opened Student Center, I snapped a picture on my phone of HIB and Humanities Hall. I was an incoming freshman, preparing to leave mini-SPOP, and I remember thinking to myself, “Well, this is my home for the next four years.”

Older people around me seem to recall and demark eras of their lives by the presidential administration, and it always seems somehow delightfully old-fashioned and nostalgic to me when my parents refer to “the Carter administration” or “the Nixon years” rather than “the seventies."

I purposely neglected to write this column because I honestly hate goodbyes. I’m not going to lie: I was really awkward during my freshman year and didn’t really enjoy dorm life or the food at Pippin that caused indigestion (I’d often see flies in my soup and birds eating someone’s scrambled eggs — no joke).

Coming to UC Irvine, I thought I knew exactly what I did and did not want. I wanted to be at UCLA. I didn’t want to be in Irvine. I wanted to have fun and party and, maybe on occasion, study. I wanted to be a fiction writer, not a journalist.

My time at UC Irvine began almost two years ago when I arrived as a slightly disinterested transfer student, and the plan at that point was pretty straightfo rward. I envisioned myself commuting to school every day, heading to class with maybe a quick stop for coffee beforehand, then driving back home to chill out with my cats, just like I did at community college. I had already been informed that everyone at UCI was “anti-social” anyway, so I figured it would be easy enough.

God does not want Mike Huckabee to run for President. Last Saturday night, the former Arkansas governor and 2008 GOP presidential candidate announced on his Fox News program that he would not be entering the 2012 race.

Various media critics saw hopeful 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s May 11 Twitter announcement and pounced on him for trying to appear “cool.”

Leave Me Alone Part Deux – College hasn’t taught me much, but a few years of walking down Ring Road has definitely taught me how to ignore people.