The Year in Editorials
“You’ve heard a great deal, we presume, about the campus. From the 3-D glasses and YOLO-themed acceptance packet, you learned that UC San Diego is Disneyland. From current students, you learned that ‘SD’ stands for socially dead and that choosing Revelle College as a humanities major is a terrible decision. Or perhaps you learned that too late.”
—Sept. 25, 2012
“Welcome to the Jungle”
“Four years ago, most of us undergrads couldn’t vote, even though many of us desperately wanted to. A young junior senator from Illinois with big speeches and even bigger ideas swept us out of our political apathy and into a fervor best summarized by his presidential campaign’s one-word mantra: hope.”
—Nov. 1, 2012
“Barack Obama for President”
“On Wednesday afternoons, chatting art students and political activist-types line up for the $5 Hare Krishna buffet, while the General Store’s ever-pleasant staff members greet dawdling patrons in search of dirt-cheap cigarettes or school supplies. It’s an idyllic scene, and probably the place where UCSD most resembles a college campus.”
—Dec. 6, 2012
“Stop By the Co-Ops”
“Dozens of student organizations (including the Guardian) were humiliated for several hours last spring when they were asked to participate in A.S. Council’s promotional ‘lip dub’ event. Not only was the finished product embarrassing (to say the least), but a parody version of Katy Perry’s ‘TGIF’ rhymed ‘Planning for Hullaballoo’ with ‘Shooting hoops with Penny Rue.’ We hope 2013 is as lip dub-free as possible.”
—Jan. 10, 2013
“What We’re Wishing for in 2013”
“Leading up to the vote at UCSD every year is a tense public input session, usually lasting several hours, in which a group of students from each side makes rousing speeches in an attempt to sway councilmembers’ votes. We’ve sat through hours and hours of these meetings, turning early March into a ‘Game of Thrones’-esque cry of, ‘Divestment is coming.’”
— Mar. 7, 2013
“Your Vote Counts”
The Year in Features
“There is sex, there are drugs, there is crime on the page. And the point of letting that stuff on ‘Confessions’ is that I’m not here to censor anyone. This is a place for people to be honest, and it would be wrong for me to control the content too tightly.”
— Creator of UCSD Memes and UCSD Confessions
Oct. 29, 2012
“Behind the Memes”
“[Nude recreation] is the great equalizer. When you meet somebody at Black’s Beach, you don’t know if you are talking to the CEO of a company, a politician, a schoolteacher or a bus driver. You are talking to a person and you get to know them as a person, not as the facade that they portray to rest of world when they have their clothes on.”
— Dave Cole, Black’s Beach Nudist
Nov. 13, 2012
“The Pros and Cons of Baring it All”
“I’ve heard similar things [in] the last few years I’ve been here. I’ve heard a lot about diversity, transparency and funding. But I’ll be honest — in three or four years, I don’t know how much that has improved the reality.”
— Tanner Smith, Revelle College Senior
Jan. 14, 2013
“Town Hall Meetings to Begin Conversation About UCSD’s Plans”
“Getting more students to ride bikes would go a long way towards reducing demand on the shuttles to the UTC area. [But once on campus], it is impossible to get between most parts of [it] without riding somewhere bikes/skateboards are forbidden, or on a road without a bike lane. For a campus our size, that is just unacceptable.”
—MattieF, UCSD Reddit User
Apr. 15, 2013
“Navigating an Obstacle Course”
“For me, I truly believe that our human curiosity is what defines both what could possibly destroy us and also what could advance us in the future. As long as we choose to do things that are meaningful and ethical, then curiosity can lead us into pretty awesome directions.”
— Albert Yu-Min Lin, Founder of UCSD National Geographic Society Engineers for Exploration
May 28, 2013
“A New Age of Exploration”
The Year in Lifestyle
“Shake ingredients, and strain. Or, give it a splash of Coke, and call it a Lindsay Lohan.”
— Sarah Shin
Nov. 8, 2012
“Have a Drink on Us: Red Headed Slut”
“Sheer looks give not only the strongest statement of sexuality and femininity, but also the beauty of fragility … Curiosity is everything (i.e. peek-aboo in sheers and cutouts). A quick word of advice: Get some amazing undergarments, as they’ll be on show for the world to see.”
— Ashley Kwon
Jan. 17, 2013
“New Year, New You: Revamp Your Wardrobe”
“You’re a freshman, she’s a freshman, and somebody wants to get laid tonight.”
— Vincent Pham
Feb. 14, 2013
“The Five Kinds of Valentines Dates”
“I’m not saying I’m Yoda when it comes to dating — I’ve probably done more dating don’ts than dos and passed up more than a few potentially great dates.”
— Jean Lee
Apr. 11, 2013
“Fast Track to Love”
“Make sure to bring ID, a receipt (for presale tickets only) and a designated driver so that you’ve not a care in the world as you’re tossing back tequila shots — just the way Jose Cuervo intended.”
— Shelby Newallis
May 2, 2013
“Cinco de Mayo”
The Year in Opinion
“The historic success of the films has, in part, depended on avid fans at Comic-Con toting Darth Vader masks and wielding lightsabers — this latest attempt at a cash grab will only please five-year-old kids whose allegiances are likely too ephemeral to spawn lifelong ‘Star Wars’ addictions.”
— Kelvin Noronha
Nov. 5, 2012
“Quick Takes: Disney’s Lucasfilm Purchase”
“Americans do not yet respect Korean artists like they do entrepreneurial bands such as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones of the British Invasion. The Korean Wave’s success is more analogous to Bollywood’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ — a foreign film that gained sudden worldwide attention but was quickly forgotten — than to the longevous British Invasion.”
— Nico Hemsley
Jan. 14, 2013
“Quick Takes: K-Pop in America”
“There is always that one friend who checks their phone everywhere: during dinner, in the movies (jerks) and while driving. They claim they have an ‘addiction,’ but what they are really suffering from is FoMO, a Fear of Missing Out — a phenomenon that sounds like texting jargon but is actually a psychological concept introduced by Dr. Dan Herman.”
— Aleks Levin
Feb. 19, 2013
“Quick Takes: Social Media Addiction”
“Although we as a campus tend to oppose privatization, it is easy to overlook those companies, like Subway and Rubio’s, which have already made it through our doors. But the overbearing presence of big name businesses is not what UCSD students want or need.”
— Alia Bales
April 15, 2013
“The Walmart Monster”
“Historians will remember college students of the late ’60s and early ’70s as the activists who rallied on their campuses against the Vietnam War with hopes of bettering the world. If Millennials want to be known for more than self-obsessed tendencies, they should make something of their lives — sans escorts and with all the optimism and love in the world.”
—Angel Au-Yeung
May 6, 2013
“The Millennial Generation Is Not That Selfish or Narcissistic”
The Year in Sports
“They started thinking more about losing, than winning.”
— Brian McManus, Head Coach, Women’s Soccer
Dec. 3, 2012
“UCSD Falls Short”
“We have a lot of potential up and down the lineup, guys that you aren’t gonna want to face. We can score runs in a variety of ways, we have speed, we have power and our pitching staff is very strong. We don’t have any holes.”
— Danny Susdorf, Senior Centerfielder, Baseball
Jan. 17, 2013
“On Deck”
“We’re peaking late, and we all kind of felt it going into the season when we were losing the close games. It’s hard to point to any one thing that we’ve done to get the results that we have, other than being focused, coming to work every day and listening to the coaches.”
— Tyler McGrath, Senior Guard, Men’s Basketball
Feb. 7, 2013
“Basketball Wins Third Straight Game”
“We did not give up,” Osga said. “We knew that we had to win if we wanted to keep playing.”
— Emily Osga, Senior Guard, Women’s Basketball
Mar. 11, 2013
“After the Dance”
“Now that I know what to expect, I know what it’s going to take to win next year, and I can prepare,” Howe said. “And hopefully if the training lines up and I’m healthy, there’s nothing that can stop me from winning.”
— Nash Howe, Sophomore Thrower, Track and Field
May 28, 2013
“On the Big Stage”
The Year in News
“I feel like the university is shooting itself in the foot, and I think that we are just as important as the research and science that goes on here.”
— Joyce Rooks, Interim Crafts Center Director
Oct. 4, 2012
“Crafts Center to Close for Academic Year”
“The people of California have voiced that they do prioritize education, and it’s the state’s turn to take action on it now.”
— Meggie Le, A.S. Council President
Nov. 8, 2012
“Election Result Party Draws 300 Students”
“The mismanagement and appropriation of funds at TPS is an atrocity to say the least. But there isn’t one person in the entire university who wants to call it out.”
— Dane Kawika Ferrari-Esias, UCSD Shuttle Driver
Jan. 31, 2013
“Protest on the Horizon”
“It is the stance of all the vice chancellors that students should not have to take on all this debt. It was an institutional mistake.”
— Penny Rue, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs
Feb. 14, 2013
“SHIP Costs May Double”
“This time, we have what’s called a strong mayor. As a strong mayor, I can make those kinds of decisions and help people.”
— Bob Filner, San Diego Mayor
May 2, 2013
“Mayor Filner Speaks About Social Justice and San Diego Plans”
The Year in A&E
“Russell forges up a concoction of blithe humor and provoking empathy, making ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ just as bipolar and deranged as its characters… but as Tiffany would say, ‘We’re fucked up, and it’s okay.’”
— Jacey Aldrege
Nov. 29, 2012
“Movie Review: ‘Silver Linings Playbook’”
“It’s also important to remember that this is the same band that made a low-budget, surrealist sci-fi film entitled ‘Christmas on Mars,’ wrote and recorded a single for the ‘SpongeBob SquarePants Movie’ and screen printed a batch of posters using Coyne’s blood as ink.”
— Ren Ebel
Nov. 29, 2012
“Play Review: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots ‘We’re Floating in Space’”
“Kendrick Lamar usually eschews traditional brag-rap for more serious storytelling, so when he gets playful (over a Hit-Boy-produced beat, no less), it’s worth listening to. Whether spitting lines like, ‘I pray my dick get big as the Eiffel Tower/ So I can fuck the world for 72 hours,’ or implicitly comparing himself to Martin Luther King, Lamar shows that even when he’s joking, he isn’t afraid to think a little bigger.”
— Sebastian Brady
Jan. 10, 2013
“2012: The Best of Music: Kendrick Lamar ‘Backseat Freestyle’”
“Like parachute pants and pet rocks, ‘The Twilight Saga’ is doomed to be the trendy faux pas of the century, one we will hopelessly try to justify to the children of the future, who will look back and ask, ‘What were they thinking?’”
— Nick Yang
Feb. 28, 2013
“The 11th Annual Anti-Oscars: The ‘Twilight’ Saga- Thank God, It’s Finally Over”
“Consider the way he looks — tongue out, skinny jeans, cartoonishly choppy hair sprouting in every direction — and he seems like precisely the type of guy to respond to public falatio from a stranger with nothing but a gap-toothed grin. Of course, sexual assault victims come in all shapes and sizes (and races and genders), and it’s never fair to make assumptions about them.”
— Arielle Sallai
May 16, 2013
“Sun God 2013: Behind the Music — Danny Brown”
The Year in Columns
“By nature, people find comfort in dismissing challenges to the familiar. And maybe I’m choosing to be ignorant. But if I were to listen to everything the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and every other researcher out there said, the only ‘safe’ way to live would be to become a paranoid recluse like Leonardo DiCaprio’s character at the end of ‘The Aviator.’ I have enough neurotic tendencies as it is.”
— Hilary Lee, Rhyme or Reason
Sept. 25, 2012
“Everything Causes Cancer, But I Couldn’t Care Less”
“But in the realm of college sports, the antics of a veteran coach — easily likened to a 4-year old who lost his favorite toy — is not only acceptable, it’s celebrated.”
— Rachel Uda, Play It As It Lays
Oct. 4, 2012
“Coaching: Good Cops and Bad Cops”
“It wasn’t until the 10th time I listened to ‘Mercy’ in a row that I finally said, ‘Enough.’ I was hearing ‘I’m in that two-seat Lambo with your girl she tryna jerk me’ on a loop in my head — and I was sick of the reminder of Kanye West’s penis. A lot of hip-hop can desensitize a girl, but somewhere around Big Sean’s millionth ass pun, I had finally reached a breaking point.”
— Arielle Sallai, Dodging the Horizon
Oct. 4, 2012
“Mercy Be Damned, October Is for the Ladies”
“We delude ourselves into thinking that we’ll have the willpower to finish that thesis later, so let’s play games now. We’re too optimistic, thinking that one week from now we will chose thesis-writing over video games, kale over Pringles, and ‘Schindler’s List’ over ‘The Hot Chick’ — so we procrastinate on things we ‘should’ be doing at this moment. Yet one week from now, we will, statistically speaking, still be just as unmotivated.”
— Angela Chen, Field Notes
Oct. 15, 2012
“Procrastinate Is Another Word for ‘Too Optimistic’”
“As a communication major (don’t laugh), you’d think I’d have figured out how to communicate by now. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: Majoring in communication teaches you little to nothing about communicating in the real world. Sure, you learn how to get through a Michel Foucault piece without crying in the shower afterward. And if you really pay attention, you can even learn really abstract, outdated theories, like the conduit metaphor. But what you won’t learn is how to communicate — at least, not by today’s standards.”
— Laira Martin, This Modern Love
Oct. 18, 2012
“Dating As Seen Through Instagram”
“Nothing pits friends and colleagues against each other more than an obsession with your own ego (and not the kind that Beyonce sings about).
— Mina Nilchian, Student Body
Oct. 25, 2012
“Leave Stress and Your Big Ego at the Door”
“The Psychological Implications of Empty, Meaningless Laugh Tracks — PSYC 123: If a laugh track plays in the middle of the forest, is it ever actually funny? Required materials include ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ ‘Two and a Half Men,’ and the newly reformatted, laugh-tracked ‘Up All Night.’”
— Rusteen Honardoost, TV Uber Alles
Nov. 11, 2012
“Presenting Your TV Course Schedule”
“We must learn to accept that with the right to self-defense granted by the 2nd Amendment, there will always be needless bloodshed. Gun violence since 1968 has already killed more Americans than all the wars in U.S. history combined. But maybe in the future we will begin to question whether this is a pound of flesh worth taking in pursuit of our ‘self-defense.’”
— Saad Asad, Politics As Usual
Jan. 14, 2013
“U.S. Gun Control Is Not on Target”
“During our infamous rush week, after hearing that Mia was from London, a girl proceeded to ask her where she had learnt her English. Mia did not join that sorority.”
— Lara Budge and Mia Florin-Sefton, Mind the Gap
Jan. 17, 2013
“Resolving to Be Just a Little More American”
“Complaining about Khosla’s salary is a lot like complaining about corporate wrongdoing: totally understandable, but unlikely to bring about real change.”
— Ayan Kusari, A Bigger Picture
Jan. 22, 2013
“A Brief History of Student Protests”
“Due to a complete clusterfuck in creating the undergraduate health plan, students are now facing increased fees and potential cutbacks to temper the UC system’s $49 million debt.”
— Aleksandra Konstantinovic, New Business
Feb. 7, 2013
“UCEN Referendum Finalized; Council Talks SHIP Premiums”
“I would have been a bad Hiatus editor (cheers, Arielle, Ren, Andrew and Jacey) — my utter lack of music knowledge has spawned some truly terrible quotes, including ‘What is a Solange Knowles?’ … For that matter, what is a Dita Von Tease?”
— Margaret Yau, The Sound and the Fury
March 7, 2013
“Goodbye, A&E: You Rock, Don’t Ever Change”
“Despite the frequent frustration and occasional angst that might accompany a tiring day, we want to be able to hop in bed at night with that warm and fuzzy feeling of accomplishment, regardless of what actually constitutes having achieved anything.”
— Kelvin Noronha, Thinking Caps
March 14, 2013
“Get Down to Business, or Simply Pretend to”
“Unfortunately, I tapped out at 6’4 (with shoes) and now have as good a chance at making the Triton starting five as I do of becoming the next pope (which my being Jewish suggests might not be likely).”
— Zev Hurwitz, Warming the Bench
April 8, 2013
“Put Me In, Coach; I Play ‘Left Out’”
“In short, the show starts with two precocious girls trick-or-treating on a misty Halloween night and ends with a satanic goblin-girl burying a realistic bust of her former (unmasked) self in a graveyard and shouting ‘I’m supposed to be me, but I’m not!’ at trembling throngs of toddlers.”
— Ren Ebel, The Haunted Tapedeck
April 18, 2013
“Haunted Masks and Motorcycle Diaries”
“And so the eerie effect of Kanye’s face looming over passersby is unnerving because of the divine power it seems to represent. Whatever you do, Kanye will see you.”
— Sebastian Brady, Between the Frames
May 23, 2013
“Why God is Kanye: A Rapper’s Deification”
