University of California Berkeley - Blue and Gold Yearbook (Berkeley, CA)

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I 1 Part of the Cal learning experience is dealing with Lounging around. After a long day of classes, all some students want to do is relax In front of their television. By living In an apartment, students could have privacy, something that living at home or in a dorm could not offer. Photo by Jason Chan 0( finding a place of our own Living in an apartment is always an adventure in the making. After a year fighting for a sink in the wild and crazy co-ed bathrooms of Unit I, anyone would be desperate to seek out an apartment off campus. Yet to the unwary apartment dweller to-be. he is about to embark on an adventure called The Game of Life. • Getting an apartment with a view of the Bay may seem like a faraway dream for some, but for many students merely a fact of life. They sought to flee the noise and the lack of privacy that epitomized dormitorv ' life, and found those lovely Southside apartments with two bedrooms, a bathtub, and a view - however obscure - of the Bay. Best friends get involved, and next thing you know you will be house-mates. These students truck up old TV .sets and worn couches that their parents willingly parted with, and learned how to dress up boxes to look like tables. For the first few blissful days, apartment life IS paradise. ...and then it hits them. What do you do with the dirty piles of dishes? How do you get food back into the fridge? And who ' s going to clean up the bathroomi!! Suddenly, reality setdes in, and the joy of apartment living becomes an adventure in housework. From dishwashing and shopping to vacuuming and toilet .scrubbing (yuck), numerous chores that students have unlearned during their stay in the dorms returned to their daily schedules. Yet afterall the toil and the pain, the apartment looks inviting once more, and it ' s worth all the effon because it ' s theirs. It may be small, and it may be expensive, but it ' s a place of their own. • Copy by Sbih Chang apartment life 21

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Suds n ' stuff. You mean Mom isn ' t around to do my laundry? Facing the reality of living on their own, students found that after so many months, there came a time when laundry had to be done. Along with tons of dirty clothes, students brought their books to the laundrymat to get in a few more moments of studying. Photo by Jason Chan Bless this mess! Without parents constantly nagging, Clean your room! the task is often ignored by students on their own. With their own apartment, students debated between which chores were more neces- sary, cleaning their room or talking on the phone. Photo by Jason Chan 20 life

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Imagine waking up two hours before your earliest class just to be on time . . . Well, that ' s trekking to school For some of us who live in the shadows of the Campanile, a walk of three blocks to get to our morning classes is already too far a trek. Yet for hundreds of students, their journeys are far more excruciating. For those who have found afforadable apartments in San Francisco, quiet flats in El Cerrito, or live with parents in Oakland, getting to school takes enough effort to earn them special distinctions of merit at graduation. Many get up two hours eariier than their peers just to get to the same class. Matt Leung, a civil engineering student, commutes in from El Cerrito everyday. At first, it was a real pain to get up early to walk to BART. But then you make it a part of your routine, and it turns out I miss less classes than my friends who live in the dorms. • Public transit is a convenient option for many who commute into Berkeley. AC Transit has many routes that take students to Sproul Plaza, and BART trains stop just a few bocks away from West Gate at Shattuck. Student commuters even get significant discounts on transit fares to encourage students to leave theircars at home. Yet many students choose to fight the traffic and congestion and get to school by driving. Students may purchase permits to park their vehicles in University lots, and numerous parking garages offer monthly discounts for the driving enthusiasts. • Getting to class is only half the journey. The voyage home is often the most difficult. Tired and stressed, they cannot count on a five minute walk home. Congested highways, delayed buses, and standing-room-only BART trains await them before they can drop their bookbags and relax. Makes Southside living seem enviable, doesn ' t it? • Copy by Shih Chang 4 I i 55 22 life