Last week we came together like never before, overwhelmingly casting our votes for President-elect Barack Obama and giving a great big middle finger to everyone who ever underestimated the power of motivated young voters. And I’m fucking excited to see that most people as frustrated as I am with the last eight years of corruption, hypocrisy and downright stupidity we’ve seen from Republicans, led by the Bush administration. But it was also pretty exciting to see UCSD students rally together over something other than the Sun God Festival.
Yup, cat’s out of the bag Tritons. You aren’t soulless zombies, magically unleashed only once a year, you’re humans — now it’s time to start acting like it the other 364.
Don’t play dumb; don’t look up from your paper, glancing around like you’re so innocent. I’m talking to you!
You, who ventures into UCSD’s sprawling landscape only to attend your classes and sometimes not even then. You, who walks briskly from one lecture to another, plugged immediately into your iPod or Bluetooth, making zero effort to communicate with your classmates. You, who arrives in class early, sitting along the aisle so as to force latecomers to scramble awkwardly over your unforgiving knees. You, who visits campus eateries and shops with your eyes locked tightly on the ground, cutting human interaction to its absolute minimum and ruthlessly rejecting friendly small talk from well-meaning cashiers. You, who when boarding a campus shuttle plants yourself prematurely forward in the middle aisle, forcing other riders to cluster unreasonably at the front of the vehicle and denying other students entry altogether. You, who denounces campus activities as stupid, poisoning these potentially awesome events in favor of another Halo marathon. This needs to stop!
We found the magic fix-it elixir, it was right in front of us all along. Now rather than complain about how lame UCSD is, we can actually do something to change that. Come on guys, seriously. Electing a president that we wanted turned out to be simple, all it took was for each of us to show up on Nov. 4 and cast our vote. Fixing UCSD’s chronic anti-socialness is just as simple, but like electing a president, we all have to commit to the change for it to work. But there’s nothing like an epic victory to get you feeling a little friendlier, anyway. So smile at a passing Triton, introduce yourself to a classmate, do your homework outside for a change, put on some blue and gold and check out a home game, if you live on campus attend a dorm-sponsored event and if you’re an upperclassman attend a Bear Garden.
Let’s ride this wave as far as it will take us.
