Tag: ucla

Another One Bites The Dust

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Mann’s National Theatre in Westwood is closing. Man, this is a piece of my history. It is where all of us Computer Club folks went one afternoon to see the first Indiana Jones. It is where I saw Star Wars. Hell, it is the theatre where I had my first real date, where I took a girl to go see 2001: A Space Odyssey. I still remember the murals they would always paint on the side.

The Westwood of my UCLA days is now definately no more. I have so many memories of “the Village”: Bratskeller, University Bookstore (later the site of the Good Earth Restaurant), Pickwick Books, Westwood Pharmacy, Old World, the National Theatre, JoJos (where I learned to eat club sandwhiches), the Thai place club folk used to always goto, the Avco, the original A Change of Hobbit, Ships, the Bank of America building, the Warehouse Record store, Bullocks Westwood, the Ralphs market in the Village… all gone. All that’s left is Sepi’s and Stan’s Donuts.

Share

Thinking of Gary Roberts

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Back when I was at UCLA, I had this cohort in the UCLA Computer Club named Gary Roberts. Gary, who was a real good guy, great clubbie, had been publically called by UCLA a parasite on the system for never taking his physics labs.

Gary is going to have to retire the crown. According to CNN, Johnny Lechner has been in college 12 years as an undergraduate student. He was expected to finally graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater this year, but withdrew his application for graduation Monday, five days before commencement. By this spring he had completed 234 college credits, or about 100 more than needed to graduate, and was taking seven more. Had he graduated, he would have earned a liberal studies degree in education, communications, theater, health and women’s studies. So why did he withdraw his application? According to Lechner, “I realized that if I went one more year, I could study abroad. That’s one thing I haven’t done.” Lechner said he didn’t start out to be a long-term student, but it just developed once he realized how much fun he was having at college.

Lechner’s longevity has qualified him for the “slacker tax.” This “tax” calls for students who exceed 165 total credit hours or 30 more than their degree programs require — whichever is higher — to pay double tuition.

Now, all together in a chorus of I Wish I Could Go Back to College:

I wish I could go back to college.
In college you know who you are.
You sit in the quad, and think, “Oh my God!
I am totally gonna go far!”

Share