International House is "heaven" compared to India

(To the left, Sumit Lad in the international house)

Sumit Lad, a graduate student studying electrical engineering has seen his fair share of dorm rooms. After attending the University of Pune in India and visiting his friends’ dorm rooms, Lad is happy he decided to dorm in the U.S

“There is a lot less socializing. I just noticed that whenever I went over there were people cursing and throwing things around. There seemed to be a lot of quarrelling.”

Lad describes the dorms in India in very callous words both in terms of the people and the rules. He says students (all of whom were engineers) were extremely competitive with each other.

“I didn’t have many friends in college in India. It was only until I started living in the international house that I started to make friends in my college career. There a lot of exchange students so they know how to have a good time for a semester before they go back”.

In fact, Lad has changed his roommate every semester within the 2 years he has lived in the international house.

“I’ve met a lot of people living here. I didn’t much of a college experience in India. Now I finally have those crazy college stories.”

Lad will be living in Beverly Plaza apartments due to the cost of the dorms.

New Meal plan offered for fall semester

A new meal plan, the Block Plus Flex Plan will be offered to new and returning residents for the fall semester. The plan consists of 160 meals per semester(which is around 9 meals a week) and $100 flex dollars which would be considered the same as Beach Club dollars and can be used at all locations on and off campus that accept Beach Club.

As of March 31st, of the 1,507 students who have applied for Housing, 518 selected 10 meals, 317 selected Block, 603 selected 19 and 69 haven’t selected yet, according to Carol Roberts-Corb the director of Housing and Residential Life. Roberts-Corb believes the meal plan is ideal for students “that want to eat on campus sometimes or go home frequently. “

The most common meal plan to be selected is the 19 meal plan. Freshman Breanna Pruett who selected the 19 meal plan said, “ The new meal plan is BS. $100 bucks! That will down the drain in a week!”

Other students such as Freshman Kirsten Ratcliff say the plan would be better for students who live closer to home.

“Even though people live at the dorms, at least half of them go away for the weekend. This will be a commuter school no matter what and this plans will work for the kind of residents that live here.”

Dining Hall receives good ratings from students

Despite complaints from non-vegetarian residents, students with special dietary needs are satisfied with the dining hall’s efforts to accommodate their needs.

Freshman Chelsea Rinden, a vegetarian for 12 years, finds that the dining hall has just enough options for her.

“Every now and then there are things that I don’t want to eat, but that goes for anybody. I do eat a lot of the same food over and over again but I do that normally, even if I wasn’t eating at the dining hall."

She also added that the ability for students to special order food (quesadillas, grilled cheese and chicken breast) gives picky eaters even more options.

Freshman Star Jeeries agrees. Jeeries had just decided to become vegan a month and a half ago and despite being stuck with hummus and pita bread for some meals, she believes the dining hall is doing the best they can. For her meals, Jeeries usually rummages through the vegan fridge.

However, some students have had to alter their eating needs such as Priscilla Sigala. Priscilla had been a vegetarian for 3 years. However, in mid November of last year she began to eat meat again in order to have more options.

“There more options once you eat meant. I started eating meat because I wanted more options in the dining hall.”

However, despite the lack of options, many students with special dietary needs believe the dining hall has done well compared to other cafeterias.

“There have been so many situations where I go to an all-you-can-eat buffet style cafeteria and there is literally nothing I can eat. At least at the dining hall I have some back up foods,” Rinden said.

Dining Hall receives good ratings from students

Despite complaints from non-vegetarian residents, students with special dietary needs are satisfied with the dining hall’s efforts to accommodate their needs.

Freshman Chelsea Rinden, a vegetarian for 12 years, finds that the dining hall has just enough options for her.

“Every now and then there are things that I don’t want to eat, but that goes for anybody. I do eat a lot of the same food over and over again but I do that normally, even if I wasn’t eating at the dining hall."

She also added that the ability for students to special order food (quesadillas, grilled cheese and chicken breast) gives picky eaters even more options.

Freshman Star Jeeries agrees. Jeeries had just decided to become vegan a month and a half ago and despite being stuck with hummus and pita bread for some meals, she believes the dining hall is doing the best they can. For her meals, Jeeries usually rummages through the vegan fridge.

However, some students have had to alter their eating needs such as Priscilla Sigala. Priscilla had been a vegetarian for 3 years. However, in mid November of last year she began to eat meat again in order to have more options.

“There more options once you eat meant. I started eating meat because I wanted more options in the dining hall.”

However, despite the lack of options, many students with special dietary needs believe the dining hall has done well compared to other cafeterias.

“There have been so many situations where I go to an all-you-can-eat buffet style cafeteria and there is literally nothing I can eat. At least at the dining hall I have some back up foods,” Rinden said.

"Now, look into my eyes..."

Close to 400 students gathered at the Parkside dining hall on Wednesday nights to see, the self-proclaimed World’s Greatest Hypnotist Dave Hill.

Before the show started Hill made sure to play his own introduction, including a list of credentials, in order to prove his credibility.

The audience eagerly raised their hands to be part of the hypnosis comedy show, however only 20 were selected.

The show began with Hill claiming that he is the world’s fastest hypnotist and made a volunteer, Luis, fall asleep almost instantaneously. Luis, was found be very susceptible to hypnosis and soon become the star of the show.

The other 16 students were hypnotized in the show were made to perform ridiculous acts such as slapping their rear end like a Congo drum or were made to believe that they were riding a horse.

Some students, who were selected to be hypnotized at the beginning of the show, were not hypnotized and asked to leave the stage.

Freshman Natalie Pacheco was not able to get hypnotized.

“I was focusing really hard but I just didn’t believe the things he was saying. My eyes were closed but I could feel they wanted to open. I was waiting for the moment to go blank but it never happened. I didn’t know how it was supposed to feel, so I was confused.”

Hill responded saying that some students aren’t able to get hypnotized because they cannot focus or concentrate or they might be curious to see what the other students are being made to do.

Others were skeptical that the students were really hypnotized.

“I heard that people that wanted to ‘help out’ with the show should go early before the show started so I thought that it might be a scheme,” said Elisse Garcia, a freshman.

Hill has been a hypnotist for 25 years and studied under another hypnotist Gil Boyne. He decided to join the profession when he saw a hypnotist show when he was 24 years old. This was Hill’s second time visiting CSULB residents.

Paying for the dorms: A lot of work and a bit of luck

(To the left, Beams working at the Renaissance fair)

There are very few residents at CSULB who can pay the staggering price of over $10,000 to live in the dorms. However, two residents, Mikey Fesser and Ashley Beams are managing to do so, in very different ways.

Beams, a sophomore has learned to earn her own living from an early age.

“I’ve worked odds jobs since I was 12. I’ve worked at the renaissance fair and I also sew costumes and prom dresses. If I wanted something I had to provide it for myself. “

In addition to her sewing jobs, Beams also worked 30 hours a week at Sports Chalet to help pay for her board. Beams says she came to live in the dorms on the false pretense that her father would help her pay, but he didn’t live up to his promise. Now Beams is worried she won’t be able to make her payments.

“I was promised by my dad that he would help pays. It was either dorms or commute. My moms not willing to help, she only pays some part of the tuition. I came here based on false promises form my dad and took that leap of faith and got screwed” Beams said.

Fesser on the other hand, had a stroke of luck both with his life and, paying for the dorms. In 2002, Fesser went to carnival and rode a ride called “The Zipper”. The Zipper contains metal cages that passengers sit in while being pulled by a cable. While Fesser and his brother were about to get out of their cage, the ride started up again, leaving the cage open and with both passengers not constrained by seatbelts. Both Fesser and his brother dropped 10-12 feet. As a result, Fesser won a settlement and receives $17,000 every four years starting on his 18th birthday.

There are not many college students who can say they are truly independent from their parents. Yet, both Fesser and Beams despite their extreme circumstances, now have that bragging right.

Dorms no more

( To the right: Blankenship's old dorm room)

Tiffany Blankenship, a freshman, doesn’t come home to the Los Alamitos dorms anymore. Blankenship, in addition to about 70 other students this school year, had to move out mid-year from the dorms according to Carol Roberts-Corb, the head of the Housing Department.

The struggle to meet the over $10,000 cost of living in the dorms weighed down on Blankenship’s family to a point where they could no longer pay. Blankenship was forced to move out in February. She is now living in Beverley Plaza Apartments and commutes to school.

“I believe the amount that you pay [for the dorms] is not economically equivalent to the services you receive. When you can go out within a mile of school and get your own apartment at much less of a cost and have a nicer place to live, there's no point in living on campus” Blankenship said.

Sophomore Michelle Zetomer no longer has a roommate due to high prices. Her roommate, Ann Monahan, was an out of state student. Monahan was unable to afford housing in addition to the increase of fees for out of state fees (an additional $372 for each credit taken).

Monahan ended up moving out at the end of last semester back home to Washington. She is currently not enrolled at any university this semester.

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