Tonight, Panda, Opti, Doc, and I went for a spin back at our old stomping grounds – the cabaret performance that Orientation Staff puts on for incoming first years.  Cabaret consists of a series of acts that include musical numbers and some skits.  O-Staff creates all of the performances, generally with a spirited Bruin theme, to get these students pumped up to join the UCLA Bruin family.  A lot of inside jokes are shared, including the famous one: “A Trojan is good only once, but a Bruin is forever.”  Of course, we can’t avoid a bit of good-humored poking at the USC Trojans, who are our arch-rivals.  The UCLA-USC rivalry is probably the greatest intra-city rivalry in the nation, so we’ve got to teach the incoming classes to be prideful!

Just being back on campus for the first time in months was nice, with everything so familiar, yet with bits of new developments showing up, like the new police station that is partly built now and the area by Pauley Pavilion that’s fenced off for the tennis tournament.  Entering the ballroom just before the performance brought back memories of when I used to groove to the music and go for a few spins around the large room on my longboard.  Then it was just spotting after spotting of people we knew, from those who have been around for 4 or 5 years to those who joined when I did last year.  I went around saying hi and hugging as many people as I could find amongst the crowd before settling down to watch the show.

The staff on stage teaching the 8-clap.

Many of the acts were still familiar and some were new, but the same Orientation flavor was in all of them.  It was my first time truly seeing it as an audience member and it went by faster than I remembered.  The four of us marveled afterward in how much shorter it seemed to feel, but in looking at the time, it didn’t seem that much shorter.  Strange, isn’t it?  I guess being backstage and part of the acts makes it seem like a lot more time passes.  At times, Panda was tempted to help out his fellow engineer and a returning counselor, Ra, who seemed to be the only one doing stage crew work most of the evening.  I remembered last year how I’d help out here and there, though sometimes I’d feel like I was more in the way when there were too many hands helping out.

It was really nice to go back and see everyone again.  I feel very out of place with the people I don’t know, but it’s almost as if not much has changed with those who I do know.  I still think of them as fondly and remember those wonderful days of living up in a beautiful residence hall with the staff that I got to spend so much time with last summer.  I loved what we did and the time I spent fulfilling a dream I’d had since I was a little high school graduate, ready to embark on my college career.  Though my memories of my own Orientation experience are limited to a general positive feeling and scattered memories of fun times, it left a lasting impression and I’m really glad I got the chance to work on O-Staff before I lost that opportunity.  Plus, I got to meet Panda there.  🙂