Dear prospective student tour groups,
I was once like you. Young, naïve, a newbie to the UCLA campus jungle. What separates me from you, though, is that I was able to lock the fuck in and stop bumbling around Bruinwalk like a little bitch.
I appear as the role model student to your feeble little minds. Never mind the fact that I just turned in a half-assed abomination of my Ochem assignment three days late – you don’t know that. You won’t ever know that. For all you know I’m getting my master’s degree and a billion dollars in research grants tomorrow. When I walk past you in front of the bomb shelter, I am the physical manifestation of the dream you’ll never achieve, crushing your self-esteem and hopes of getting into a good college. Don’t you know UCLA doesn’t accept ugly people? You aren’t even a student here (and you won’t ever be), so stop taking photos in front of Royce with the $60 sweatshirt you bought from Ackerman. My culture is not your costume.
You and I are different in so many ways. For one, I’m more accomplished than you. I’ve successfully sent out two cold emails this year, while I bet your infantile ass doesn’t even know what a CV is. Secondly, I’m also just more attractive than you. The sole reason I got rejected from USC is that they didn’t approve of how my only experience with Trojans was with the latex ones. Most importantly, I don’t have my parents hovering over me 24/7/365. I call my mom twice a day every day to talk to her because I WANT to, not because I’m forced to.
Despite my clear superiority to you, I must give you credit where it’s due. Sometimes, you are the reason I actually go to class in person. The extra hour of sleep I could get pales in comparison to the ego boost of seeing your awe-struck faces as I walk by. For that, I’m willing to pick out a presentable outfit and pose in the Sculpture Garden with my empty bullet journal and fountain pen. You walk by, glancing at my sexy sleep-deprived body, all the while trying not to kill the tryhard next to you who asks the tour guide if 17 AP classes and an SAT score of 5 billion are enough to get into UCLA. I laugh, knowing it will never be good enough and you should just give up.
Now as I sit outside Kerckhoff with my $11 powdery-ass matcha, trying to understand why the fuck linear algebra isn’t just y = mx + b, I hear your coked-up tour guide yap about “Ivy League collegiate gothic style” bullshit for the 17th time today. I roll my eyes nostalgically, remembering how little regard I had for peace and quiet when I first toured campus. I lovingly mutter to myself: “What a bunch of stupid imbeciles,” and then proceed to skip my 2 p.m. lecture and go day drink in my dorm.
With no due respect,
Grace B. “Better than you” McIntyre