Idiots Guide to IV Halloween

Hook ups, break ups, and a whole lotta skin. That's pretty much Halloween in Isla Vista. It's the day after Halloween and I think its safe to say that the Halloween activities are out of everyone's system (well, maybe not completely out of the system, but that's why Tylenol and Gatorade were invented, right?). Beginning exactly one week ago after the last midterm of the day, UCSB no longer housed students: it became the base camp for the pilots of partying. No longer were there sleep deprived teenagers clumped in every corner freaking out about their chemistry midterms in six hours; instead, every hall was crawling with barely covered nurses, skimpy-skirted Disney princesses, stained Smurfs, bibbed babies in diapers,and I even saw the Spice Girls pop into room 1229. Yup, Halloween in IV is most definitely a holiday for those with creative imaginations.


Now, the dorms are one thing, but imagine if you took the people in the dorms, trimmed about 7 inches off each skirt (or just eliminated the skirt all together), pushed the boobs together until there was cleavage up to the chin, added two pounds of makeup to each face, and multiplied that by 1,000. That's what Isla Vista is like. Walking around isn't so much as walking but more like floating in a sea of bodies: You will ricochet off of Spongebob only to go hurling head first into a giant, air-filled penis and bounce back into a pod of Playboy Bunnies. I read the paper the other day and it said that every Halloween there are an estimated 50,000 people in Isla Vista (an area that is less than a square quarter mile), so that means that there are plenty of opportunities to be running into life size, phallic objects. With my help, hopefully that won't happen too often!

Lesson #1: Navigating Your Way

Now, as entertaining as wandering Del Playa is, one of your objectives, as an educated Halloween participant, is to find a party and squeeze your way in so that you don't have the Dementors outside looming over you. In case you were wondering, "the Dementors" is the affectionate term that I like to give the cops on horseback that clip-clop around in a pack of twelve or so, and go around sucking the happiness out of every situation while subsequently littering the ground with horse feces only so that some poor, unsuspecting Malibu Barbie can step her five inch stilettos into it and then burst into tears (Ok, so maybe they don't suck all the happiness out of the night...). Regardless, you're pretty much looking to get your ass in a house so that you can: a) Go pee b) Take your heels off, and c) If you're a boy, check out the ladies.



By the way boys, women = currency; if you don't have a girl with you, you can just kiss your party-hopping experience goodbye. Please don't take this the wrong way because your penis is indeed useful for many things (ie: procreation), but for this particularly stop exchange rate, the women come out on the top of the market (cheer up! Think about it like a Freudian would, we all just have penis envy anyways. But that's neither here nor there...) Moving along, upon arrival at said house, you can pretty much bank on certain things: For one, you are going to see more than one derriere within the first two minutes of being inside - deal with it! - and likely on your right will be a half-naked Hermione making out with Luke Skywalker and on your left, Buzz Lightyear will be doing an epic keg stand where he will most certainly be going to infinity and beyond (note to self: avoid Mr. Lightyear for the rest of the night); just take a moment, walk on, and DON'T STARE: NOBODY LIKES A CODFISH! The second thing that you can bet to see is a big group of boys doing the 'Soulja Boy' dance. If you don't know what the dance is, Youtube.com it immediately and then continue reading - in fact, youtube the instructional video just so that you too can break it out at Bar Mitzvahs, weddings, and the occasional office holiday party (you will be certain to get a raise in the new year). Anyways, back to the Soulja boys - they will pretty much be dominating the middle of the room so you have one of two options: park it on a couch and precede to take a thousand pictures documenting how totally hella cool the party is OR venture to the backyard and pray to God that its not more of the Soulja Boy dance or a Bible reading.

Lesson #2: Proper Party Etiquette

The Backyard is where the true partygoer test is applied. You must walk the fine line between being aware and being cool. Let nothing phase you, yet always be on your guard. Know at all times where the creepy bearded guy is, and at the same time scan the rest of the field. Talk to your friends but still have an inviting air so that a stranger may gracefully ease into the conversation. It's all very tricky... first thing is first though: find where the woofer speakers are and make sure that you are not standing within a 20 foot radius of the speakers (it's hard to look cute when you are bleeding from the ears). Next, if you are a girl you might want to identify where the bathroom is because sooner or later you will need to cram yourself in there along with all of your girlfriends. Similarly, when you pick your spot to nonchalantly stand around and talk, make sure that you avoid fences and especially corners because guaranteed, at least twenty-seven phrat boys have relieved themselves there in the last hour. Now you are ready to socialize!

Cardinal rule number one when it comes to socializing with the opposite sex: Always have an escape comment so that if the conversation gets a little too friendly, you can easily, and non threateningly push the person away. Examples for girls: "Ya, this is a really great party but it's too bad there aren't any tampons in the bathroom. Hey, do you have one?" or the clutch play if he's dropping one too many compliments, "Oh, that's so sweet! My boyfriend says the same thing to me right before he enters his cage fighting matches!". Boys, just throw down that you are either gay or have a scorching case of herpes (or both if she's really persistent), and you're good to go. Now, assuming that you don't converse with a complete sleaze bag, you might find yourself in a conversation with a person that you actually like. But precede with caution - if you are too committed you may in turn come off as one of the aforementioned creepsters and wind up hearing that the person you are talking to is a menstruating lesbian who's cage fighting girlfriend just infected her with the Clap. So stay cool and collected, avoid talking about your bodily functions, and be conscious of how low you bend over, and you are a regular Kelly Rippa- Congratulations.

Lesson #3: Always Use the Buddy System

Although it is lesson number three, it is in fact the most important lesson. NEVER, EVER party in IV on Halloween alone! This is for a number of reasons: 1) You will look like a complete loner, and who are we kidding ourselves? Appearance really is everything. 2) If you are a guy, you look like the ultimate sleaze ball and if you are a girl you may as well just have SKANK written across your forehead 3) It's not exactly safe - you may get accosted by a my-size Wheaties Box (i speak from experience), and 4) when the escape comment fails you, you need a buddy to swoop in. Take a hypothetical situation: You decide that you aren't exactly up for strapping on the Go-go boots and hiking up your skirt, so you opt for the warm, creative costume- Quailman, for example. You go out with some friends, end up at a party, follow the proper party etiquette protocol as described formerly, and end up chatting it up with a purple-hatted pimp next to the Jungle- Juice dispenser. You delve into the archives of your socializing skills and deem that this guy passes all necessary conversation partner tests, so you go for the gold and decide to get to know him. This is where the rule of never let your guard down becomes crucial: now say in this hypothetical situation that your pimped out babble buddy decides to go one step further, thus removing his pimp hat and putting it on you. To be polite, you keep it on for a minute while in your head you are beginning to come up with a good exit strategy, then you say "Well, I think it's time that the pimp had his hat back" wherein he replies, "Oh no! It looks much cuter on you". Right now you should be looking around for the nearest exit, but in this hypothetical situation, Pimp McGee begins to tell you about his life: "Soooooo, my brother was on the show POWER RANGERS, pretty cool huh? If you want, we could go back to my house and I could show you some family footage...". This is when it comes in handy to have a party buddy that you travel with. In this hypothetical situation, your entire buddy party shows up to stealthily whisk you away so that the blue ranger's brother doesn't try and whip out that family footage right there and then. This brings up my second word to the wise: Be meticulous when choosing who your buddy is. Hypothetically, you might get a buddy who, instead of helping you in a time of need, decides to fuel their own entertainment void by telling you that you and Pimp man are "Oh so cute together....PICTURE!", precedes to smash you two together (all the while Ron Jeremy over here is trying to grope your Quailman goods so he's MORE than happy to take the picture), and you are left to helplessly take the picture, thus completely draining any ounce socializing skill that you were still clutching to after realizing that you had chosen the wrong chit chat pimp. But that was a hypothetical situation, i doubt it would ever happen.

Lecture Number 9

I wrote this while I was in my Psych 1 lecture last Tuesday. At 9:30 in the morning. Ew.

The entire freshman class is sitting in Campbell Hall. There is a choir of coughing, a melody of murmur, and lovely crescendos of mass amounts of people turning the page in unison. Its really ironic that we are talking about learning right now because I think there might be four people in here who are actually learning. Maybe. Its also funny that I say "we". WE are doing nothing. WE are sitting. WE are listening to him. HE is talking. Talking at us. Occasionally he will joke with us. And by "with", again I mean "at". He jokes AT us. This bullshit is riveting. Really, it is.

So the moral of today's class - well, shit. The one second that he says anything of importance and of course, I'm in the middle of saying how useless this class is. Oh well. Anyway, as i was about to say - OH MY HOLY FUCK! The sorority sister behind me just cackled into my ear. INTO my ear! And, thanks to my psych book that I stayed up until three am reading, I know that I am cringing due to the vibrations of the cackling sound that are going through my eardrum and thus resonating against the furry receptors in my cochlea - WHAT THE HELL?!?! Sigma Cackle Pi's fellow sister just dropped her water bottle onto my head. No rest for the weary - at least not when you're sitting in front of the most annoying Freshman in Campbell Hall. And that's saying something, considering that the ENTIRE Freshman class is in here right now.

Anyway, as I was saying, I have found the moral of today's class: We should just kill everyone who doesn't learn on the first try. I think that would wipe out 96% of this room. But, knowing my luck, Lips and Hips behind me will still be here. Merde.

The Roomie

Orientation: Two days in the summertime when incoming freshman go to what I like to refer to as informational boot camp- you have to go to decade-long meetings, separate into intimate groups of fifty people, learn how to sign up for classes, agonize about signing up for classes, watch other people sign up for classes, get rejected from the classes that you signed up for, realize that a prerequisite for signing up for classes means that since you're a freshman you wont get to be in any worthwhile classes because you are scum, sign up for some crappy general class like Psych 1 with every other freshman in the state of California, and of course, stay over night with a complete stranger in a ten by ten square foot closet. Basically, orientation is a blast no matter which way you look at it.

My orientation began as any other person's experience. Show up awkwardly in Manzanita Village, get the stupid name tag that says all of your pertinent info just shy of your SSN, realize that you are a dumbass for not wearing sunscreen in the middle of August, perk up when you notice that your group leader is probably an Abercrombie model on weekends (so maybe these two days wont be so bad after all...), and then mosey on over to the office to get your room key so that you can check out your room and roommate and locate the nearest exit in case she turns out to be the uni-bomber's daughter. Simple enough. So I walk up the stairs and I'm my hall I see a guy - I know what you're thinking, is he cute? Nope. Pretty faceless, actually. Just your average bro - and he says to me "Oh, I didn't know there were co-ed floors"; logically, my response is, as I flip my hair and bat my lashes violently (hey, cute boy or not, a little flipage and batting never hurt no one), "I guess so". Famous last words.

I enter my room and much to my dismay, my roommate isn't there. But out of the corner of my eye, I see a backpack. Since they always say that you can tell a lot about a woman by the contents of her purse, I figured checking out the exterior of a backpack couldn't be much different; so I turned the backpack over to have a gander. Oh sweet Jesus. The black backpack was covered with Pokemon patches and Picachu key chains. Fanfuckingtastic- I got the gamer chick; this could get interesting. But I decided that maybe she was a cool girl and I was jumping the gun a bit, so I put my backpack down and carried on with my day.

Fast foreword to 15 hours later, it's one in the am and I'm returning from a friend's birthday party. I make my way to my room, put the key in the door, and halfway expect to see my roommate making out with some guy in my bed (I figured the gaucho spirit might have already taken over). How very wrong I was. My roommate was in the bed, wrapped like in a cocoon, and in deep sleep. I decided that the best course of action would be to just try and be really quiet and meet her in the morning. But, of course, when you're trying your hardest to be quiet, you always manage to be the loudest, so, needless to say, I woke poor roomie up. In true Daisy form, I began to babble like a complete buffoon: "HimynameisDaisyandI'myourroomateandI'mreallysorrythatIwokeyouupandjustgobacktosleep"
Then I hear a noise that I definitely did not expect to hear; it started in the depths of a beer belly, traveled up the esophagus while getting coated with testosterone, snagged on an Adam's Apple along the way, and finally I heard in a deep, groggy voice, "Wait... are you a girl?"
"Ummm, yes. Are you?"
"No."

*******a century of dead silence******

"Ugh...how did you get in here?"
"I had a key" (at this point I'm looking at the key trying to grasp the fact that this stupid piece of metal opened up such an awkward situation)
"Oh. Well...errrmmm.....uuuuhhhhh....are you gunna... I mean, is it allowed....ummm....are you gunna stay here overnight?"

So this is where the mental switch in my mind happened- I said to myself, screw it. This kid is way more freaked out than I am. And hell, I'm taking yoga - quite frankly, I would like to see him try something; I would go Warrior One on his ass faster than he could say "namaste".

So i say: "You know what man? I'm exhausted, I need to wake up in 6 hours, they gave me this key, it fit into that lock, that's my bed, and I'm too lazy to figure this whole sitch out currently, so ya, I think I'm going to stay here overnight."

As I turned down my covers and made the executive decision that I would just bare through it and sleep in jeans that night, I really pryed deep into the innermost echelons of my roommate. His name was William; he was from San Diego; he was a biochemistry major; and he was Asian. I felt the connection. I lay there in my bed and soaked in the awkward minute where CLEARLY he wasn't asleep, and CLEARLY I wasn't asleep, but I decided that it was time to break that silence.
"William?"
"Uhhh....ya?"
"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
".......uhhhh.... right."

The next morning I booked it before it could get too awkward. But I did see him in the dinning commons in line for the soy milk with his fellow Asian homies. Screw it, I said to myself, and I yelled across the dining commons as loud as I could, "WILLIAM!", he looked at me and I continued, "LAST NIGHT WAS AMAZING!" William turned about twelve shades of red, awkwardly waved, and took off towards the coco puffs. I never saw William again. Until I walked into my psych discussion two months later and the only open seat was next to dear William.

Storke Tower, Bike Paths, and the IV Foot Patrol

Hello all!

So here I am at the first major crossroads of my life, and where am I exactly? In sunny Santa Barbara at UCSB, affectionately referred to as the University of Casual Sex and Booze; it has a nice ring to it, ya? Now, as I was sitting in Ethics class today (is it wrong that I think the professor has really nice muscles? I guess that all depends on whether or not his having muscles is a result of a moral decision or an immoral one...hmmm....), and I thought to myself (and excuse my language, but honestly, who doesn't cuss in their head? and who are we kidding, it's me): "Holy shit. I've been here for five weeks and have already encountered more funny situations that I did in my whole four years of high school." I guess that's more telling of my high school experience, but bare with me when I say that UCSB most definitely lives up to its lovely nickname.

So, in the spirit of growing up and what not, I've decided to start a blog so that you all can live vicariously through moi and maybe get a little taste of what being a gaucho is REALLY all about. Cheers!