Three campus visits in a month is going to kill me. If not because of the time spent sitting on a plane, then because I make extremely poor food choices when I travel (especially if it's not on my tab). Ugh, my one work out this week didn't fix those. My visit to UC Irvine was great. The professors there are really nice and the vibe was so very positive. But being a public school, any of the UCs is not going to give me the funding I'm going to need to make ends meet as an international student (they can't waive non-resident tuition for more than the first year of study). But I also decided that despite my interests in people (first) and media (second), anthro is too far removed from communication theory, something I've spent way too many years studying to just abandon. So I spent the trip just being a good listener and letting the other prospective students ask all their questions. Irvine was strangely like Foster City but perhaps even more dull, I mean suburban. Everything is sooo spread out with alternating apartment complexes, office buildings, and strip malls. Here's a photo I took on campus.
pretty reflection captured on the window of a building at UC Irvine
I had nothing to do on Saturday afternoon so I went to Fashion Island to go shopping for a couple bday gifts. The outdoor shopping center was in Newport Beach. People here are stinking rich and all have small dogs who wear clothing that quite likely costs more than anything in my wardrobe. They also look strangely alike. Many many white women with really ridiculously dark tans, overly bleached blond hair, big boobs, and lots of make up and lip gloss... and there's something else. The skin on their faces is pulled unnaturally taut. Being there was really kinda spooky and surreal. I was pretty happy to get out of there and over to Orange County Airport to continue my people watching where the ladies didn't all look like clones.
view of the ocean from the entrance to Fashion Island shopping center in Newport Beach, CA
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