So some of your friends were recently accepted to Cal. Good for them, right? Except for the part when they won’t stop getting in your ear about it. They’ll probably be bragging to you about their scholarship winnings, how some professor personally called them to recruit them or how they’re better because their freshman class was more selective than yours by about 0.3 percent. And being the average student that you are, you don’t really hold anything over them. However, there are a few ways to get them to stop harping on about how they’re better than you ever were.
Note: These tactics should only be employed after they’ve signed the next four years of their life away by SIR’ing to Cal.
Mention Chem 1A. You should hope that their major forces them to take this class. If they’ve let slip that they didn’t manage to fit in any AP Chemistry during their time at high school, all the better. Simply assure them that it’s not that bad, while genuinely attempting to conceal maniacal laughter. Casually mention the endless lab periods about green chemistry and the inordinate amount of work that follows for added effect.
Say how much you love your apartment. Talk about how it’s good to have escaped the confines of the dorms, not having to mind that invisible line that separates you and your roommate, and how your excess of meal points aren’t binding you to Cafe 3 day after day out of sheer guilt. You can also talk about how the aura of quiet hours no longer hangs over you every evening after 11 p.m., and that you don’t live in constant fear of your very particular RA next door – even in the likely case that your RA was friendly.
Discuss the bipolarity of the weather. Trust that they’re the type to dress as Mother Nature dictates. Moreover, urge them to bring as many warm clothes as they can, because you know, it’s so frigid and gloomy in the Bay Area. The payoff time for this trick requires a lot of patience, but you can definitely laugh at them this time next year when they’re drenched in sweat as they take the long hike up from Unit 1 to Soda Hall.
Chuckle at the possibility of not making friends. Even though you know that Berkeley has a community of general openness, and that your room/floor-mates were the first of your many acquaintances at the university, take this chance to piggyback on the idea of them being forever alone. You can then kindly point out that the restaurants have seats facing outside that were specifically designed for individualistic people such as themselves, and that most of the lecture halls like Wheeler have awkward corner seats where they can escape the burden of social contact.
Marvel at how you got past the “Freshman 15.” You can write a version of Mein Kampf chronicling your struggles with the sheer availability of food and your lack of self-control – and of course, how you’ve worked that off and gotten remarkably sexy calves by walking from class to class for the last couple of years. Especially that time during Welcome Week when there’s no dearth of free food – how can you resist that? Be sure to end the conversation by subtly complimenting that beach body they’ve worked so hard on and snicker to yourself at the thought of its non-existence in a few months. And of course at the lack of beaches in Berkeley.
Naturally, feel free to keep up the charade of fairness for as long as you want, but be sure to tell them the truth before you scare them off completely. They may be depressingly smarter than you and better than you in most every statistical and personal category, but you can definitely one-up them on gullibility.
Image source: UC Berkeley Admissions
Contact Uday at umehta@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter at @mehtakid.
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