ARE YOU INTO "FAMILY VALUES" LIKE ME? If so, go to the part of the district website that is devoted to “The Chancellor’s Opening Session”:
http://www.socccd.org/chanc/update8-16-05.htm
There, you will discover, among other things, a 60 second radio spot that has been broadcast on KROQ-FM. The spot presents an exchange between an announcer and a surfer dude of the Keanu Reeves variety. Here’s the exchange:
ANNOUNCER: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all the lessons of life can be found in surfing. Let us demonstrate. Let us propose that this surfboard—
SURFER DUDE: Yeah, dude: one God, one fin!
ANNOUNCER: —is the path you carve through life.
SURFER DUDE: Wow, heavy, the path.
ANNOUNCER: And without wax, that path is—…wipe out!...—slippery. What you need is wax—metaphorically speaking—which is to say, college.
SURFER DUDE: Yeah, dude, wax! …um, college.
ANNOUNCER: College is the wax that sticks you to the board that is the path you carve through life and so the waves can be triple overhead, and you will fear no evil.
SURFER DUDE: No fear!
ANNOUNCER: And you can travel through the green room and blast out of the tube with a career and money and hotties and happiness!
SURFER DUDE: college equals a career and happiness! –and some wax, right?
ANNOUNCER: close.
ANNOUNCER: My OC COLLEGE dot com. –Surf on over! Giving away an iPod a week!
I wonder if the writer of this spot knew that he was peppering his surfer skit with allusions, not only to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, but to the Declaration of Independence and Psalms?
Surely he is a scholar of the first rank!
I must be a chump. I keep telling students that getting a good education is important because….well, never mind. Now I’m embarrassed. Gosh, it never occurred to me to mention HOTTIES.
The above site also outlines a presentation made on opening day by Tracy Daly, the district’s marketing person. (She seems nice; why does she always seem to be cowering?) According to the site, Tracy gave an update, which concluded with “three things that everyone can do to promote the Colleges.”
They're pretty good. Are you ready?
1. Be positive.
2) Think what you can do.
3) Keep 5 schedules in your car.
Yes, being positive is so important. No doubt she can trace that particular nugget to the Chancellor, a fellow, who, when he was President of IVC, used to distribute a handout about "attitude." It offered the following positive suggestions:
:-) Give yourself one compliment per day.
:-) Have a “Brag Buddy” to share successes with.
:-) Say to yourself at least ten times per day, “I love myself” or “I like myself.”
:-) Make a photo copy of the palm of your hand and give yourself a “pat on the back.”
That last suggestion's so deep, that its depth stretches all the way from the universe to the black hole in space (to praphrase Tony Orlando).
Tracy offers some concrete suggestions for “what you can do,” including “take as many students as possible in your classes.”
Why didn’t I think of that!?
Ms. Daly also helpfully explains about the “5 schedules”: you've got to have some handy, cuz students, she says, can be found “in hair salons, gyms and shopping malls.”
Is that where we’ve been scrapin’ up students all these years? --CW
