One week of school is now on the books, and for the bright-eyed freshmen on this campus, that means one thing: All those amazingly (almost unnervingly) nice NSO upperclassmen and students have abandoned you and most likely don’t even recognize your “pathetic” (their words, not mine) existence around campus anymore. They’ve moved on to bigger and more important things, like living their own lives. They no longer have time for you.
But not me.
I still know you exist. And that’s why this week’s column is dedicated to you. Adjusting to college can be hard. I can only imagine you spent your first weekend on campus huddled in your bed, occasionally lifting a blind to look outside into the world. (NOTE: The reason I assume that is because that’s what I did.)
For those of you that went outside, you probably felt like that guy from “28 Days Later,” walking around campus trying to convince yourself that the zombie apocalypse did not occur overnight. Alas, that’s Pepperdine for you.
Every freshman on campus, besides being either a boy or girl, has one thing in common: They all carry around the College Prowler Pepperdine University OFF THE RECORD book. Don’t act like it’s not in your knapsack right now (and don’t act like you don’t call your backpack a knapsack).
You’ve all been walking around campus these first couple of weeks trying to validate or invalidate the claims made by this book. I’m still doing that. Because this process can be soul crushing and esteem debilitating, I took it upon myself to come up with my own OFF THE RECORD-OFF THE RECORD for you guys that will shed some light on this book. Of course the double negative in that last sentence, coupled with the fact that this is being published in the school newspaper makes this report very ON the record, but that’s neither here nor there. The report:
Computers [F]: the school computers at this place are always taken, and it’s totally frowned upon at this school to illegally download Taio Cruz songs or entire programs from torrent websites. In the library or labs, it can be impossible to find a computer. It’s like they expect you to bring your own or something. What am I, a walking money tree?
Campus dining [A+]: For $53,000, some people would just assume filet mignon would be delivered to your dorm on a nightly basis, on plates made of unobtanium, by an Avatar. But instead we get a fountain machine that costs more than any of our lives, and I think that’s a great thing. Let me put it this way: If the school were Batman, the students were Rachel and that machine were Harvey Dent in the movie “Dark Knight,” the school would race to save Harvey instead of us (though they’d end up saving us in the end because of the Joker’s crazy tricks, so take that, fountain machine!).
Guys/girls [A+]: Sure, everyone at this school has either been dating the same person since fifth grade or is so emotionally damaged that they don’t think they can ever love again. But there are still plenty of attractive people (fish) at this school (sea), some with great personalities and hearts of gold, that love volunteering at soup kitchens and trying to make people laugh with their weekly columns.
Nightlife [A+]: It’s true: I walked outside last weekend and thought I missed the rapture. At this school, when people go missing, that’s the first thing that runs through your head. There are 3,700 people here so how come everyone keeps going home on the weekends? You know something’s wrong when you look forward to Mondays so you can see your friends again.
So you see, gang, things here at Pepperdine aren’t as bad as College Prowler makes it out to be. You just have to come here with the right attitude and an open mind. This school is only the sum of its student body, so if you don’t like something about this place, pull a Gandhi and “be the change you wish to see.”
