Berkeleyian Disappointments

The urban dictionary defines Berkeley as a city that makes "Amsterdam look conservative". Berkeley was home to the free speech movement and was the first city to convert its entire diesel fleet to bio-diesel fuel and to prohibit the sale of ozone depleting styrofoam in fast food containers. Progressive and liberal go with Berkeley the same way 'evil' meshes so well with Wal*Mart. Lately, however, I have been disappointed with my fellow citizens.

Every time I take a shower the previous user of the shower has left the water running. They haven't left it running full blast mind you, but it's a steady trickle. The dripping is loud and it's blatantly wasteful. I am also sure I am the first one to use it in the morning which translates to the water being on all night. While this is not only bad for the environment, I am almost sure that it does help whatever fungus may be growing in a college freshman dorm bathroom.

It's not only my fellow floor mates that are wasteful, it's my damn roommates as well. Why must one of my roommates insist upon leaving the lights on when he leaves. Not just the main light, but his desk light as well. And no, it's not because someone else is in the room and he doesn't want to be rude. I have walked in from my day at school and work to find both of the lights on and my roommate absent.

The other roommate is no better, I don't know how many times I have walked into the room and his godforsaken speakers are blasting his hyphy music. But where is the roommate responsible for this? Oh he left about thirty minutes ago to get drunk and stumble in at 2:00 am yelling things that have nothing to do with anything.

Mind you this is the same city that has hippies up in oak trees for the past few weeks trying to save them from being torn down. I think if they saw what my fellow floor mates were doing they would be sitting in our shower stalls protesting the water the pressure or something.

After all of this disappointment in my fellow "Berkeleyans", I am never disappointed by their sense of humor. In high school people would write on the desks about how one person might be a bitch or how they have the biggest copulatory organ at the school. Yesterday I discovered some desk graffiti that made me giggle a little. One student carved into the desk "Who let the dogs out?". Directly underneath, written by another student: "Pavlov?".