Santa Cruz
 

it's kind of funny, since Fraternity Life is here everyone's worried about the nation stereotyping Santa Cruz, and yet they're perfectly willing to stereotype fraternity members.

i just moved here, and i don't really know anyone yet, which has given me a lot of time to explore the town and find out the good and bad points about it. the best parts about santa cruz are the music and the burritos. there's a lot of different kinds of music at the Catalyst club downtown. i've seen two reggae shows there, which was lucky because i'm not quite 21. the burritos, you can always find a good one here.
the campus is where i spend a lot of my time and there is a little hill somewhere by the performing arts complex that is a perfect place to spend a clear night. you can see all the way across monterey bay, and since campus is pretty far from town you can do some good stargazing or whatever you're into doing when you're sitting in a quiet, dark, secluded place. also, there's a lot of trails on campus and it's nice to be able to go on a hike through the woods on the way to your classes.
you can hear the seals barking at night or whenever it's quiet. there's a long winding road along the coast that's called West Cliff Drive. anyway, that's where the seals are the loudest, and the pullouts along the road are good places to sit and enjoy some solo time with a good view.
sometimes i like just talking to people on the street. there's a lot of interesting things you can learn and stories you can hear from people who don't really have anything better to do at the moment than talk to a complete stranger. there's this awesome old theater downtown called the Del Mar that plays relatively independent movies and every friday and saturday night they have the midnight movie, which lets you get a chance to see some older movies you may have missed on the big screen. there's also another neat little independent theater called the Nickelodeon.

anyway, that's my bit about santa cruz...

--m

Welcome, Mischka!

If Santa Cruz is where you are, where've you been?

Just curious. Answer if you want, leave it a mystery if you don't.

i've been in bellingham, washington...and before that, there was tampa, florida... probably the two most diametrically opposite places in the continental united states.

i guess i was just one of those kids whose primary factor for choosing a college was getting one as far away from home as possible.

...and then i got sucked into the whole "california dreaming" type thing, but that's okay, because as far as i can tell, california has its reputation for a reason (and i'm talking both the "nice place to live" reputation and the "crazy, arnold-electing kooks" reputation.)

by the way, is the word "kook" an offensive word? i was never sure if it was a racial slur or not, i just know it from surfing.

thanks for the welcome,
--m

It's not a racial slur. It's a beatnik word drived from "cuckoo." It just describes nutty people as you intended.

Incidentally, I'm reading a books called KOOKS by Donna Kossy (that's where I got the origin of the word). She wrote it after years of collecting weird religious tracts and flyers people handed to her when she lived in San Francisco.

Sounds like a fun read ... stuff weirder than Jack Chick? (I consider Chick Tracts to be the gold standard of religious advertising)

He he. I have this one . Not surprising as it is touted as "world-wide favorite." I think I must have got it from someone in the downtown Mpls Skyway, a long time ago. I think it's good stuff, too. I give Chick points for creativity. I'm not sure if he would qualify as a full-fledged kook in this book ("Kooks"). His views are, unfortunately, not too uncommon.

Religion is just one section of "Kooks: A Guide To The Outer Limits of Human Belief." It covers Anglo-Israelites, Black Messiahs, Apocalyptic fervor, and my personal favorite, the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps.

Other sections are Science (Flat-Earthers), Metaphysics (Raelians), Politics, Conspiracy, Enigmas, and Outtakes. A lot of it is stuff I've never heard of, actually. There is a lot of detail. I would prefer less (short attention span), but it is all interesting anyway.

It's been awhile!
 

I grew up in the Santa Clara area and used to visit Santa Cruz during the summers. As a kid, there wasn't much to do then (early 70's) besides the boardwalk. I just might have to revisit next year to see all the changes. I live in Idaho now >>
http://home.att.net/~elmo_cookie/wsb/index.html

Nice pictures, raps.:thumb:

Thanks Bruce! I will post more of my area when the snow starts to fall. :cool:

If I'm not mistaken, Jeni and Paul live in Santa Cruz. They may know of other cool things to do.

I assume you go to UC-Santa Cruz, mischka? If so, do they still use the pass/fail grading system? I remember that coming under fire a few years ago...