Every summer, a hundred Brazilian adolescents descend on
UCLA’s dormitories to study English. When one gets sick, a counselor phones
April Travel Insurance which phones me.
I graduated UCLA fifty years ago, and returning is a
strange experience. Crowds outside the dormitories shriek, laugh, and chatter.
It sounds like a kindergarten. Were we that noisy? Women’s fashions don’t seem
to have changed, but the males look dorky. My generation had long hair and
tight clothes. Nowadays it’s short hair and baggy clothes. Men wear shorts.
Don’t they realize how silly they look? We kept books in lockers. Now everyone
has a backpack. Especially odd is the number of Asians who make up a third of
the enrollment. Most speak perfect English, so they’re clearly American. Where
were they when I was a student?
In my day, when you entered a university building, you
found a door and entered. Today all except the main entrance are locked.
Students manning the front desk consider names and room numbers privileged
information. Using the elevator requires a key which all students carry. This
is identical to hotel security and probably no more effective.
On arriving, I phone a counselor from the lobby who
comes down to escort me. The dorm rooms are tinier than I remember, and I
suspect little studying occurs because desks are piled with personal items.
Delivering medical care is no problem, but it’s summer, and foreigners consider
air conditioning unhealthy, so the rooms are hot.
Middle-class teenagers suffer respiratory infections, upset
stomachs, and minor injuries almost exclusively, so, once I learned to deal
with UCLA’s draconian parking policy, I found these easy visits.
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