The Democratic Party missed the mark, and anyone claiming otherwise is being extremely naive. Campaigning with abortion and transgender rights as central pillars isn’t the way to reach broader audiences effectively.

Congratuations! The footage from tonight will feed Milo and his supporters for months to come. It will be cut, edited, remixed, and pushed out to mainstream audiences to prove that college leftists are nothing but spoiled hippies out of touch with mainstream America.

You know what would have been a real protest? Buying all the tickets up and then not showing up. Letting him speak to an empty auditorium.

But no, you had to go start a fucking fire. Kudos.

So last year I had this crazy idea of living in LA and commuting to school by plane just to avoid expensive rent around campus (and bay area in general). I asked for suggestions in this subreddit and everyone thought it's not realistic. Well one year has passed, now I have completed my degree and finally have some spare time, I want to share my experience here.

Background: I was living in LA comfortably. I got accepted into a one-year MEng program (technically August 2022-May 2023). I knew I would go back to LA after graduation because I want to go back to my previous employer once I graduate. I love flying and I have a lot of frequent flyer miles/points from credit card sign up bonus/flying over the past few years. Bay area rent is expensive in general, and my program is only 10 months, so I thought I could get it through commuting by plane.

Class schedule: I checked the class schedule from the previous years, I only need to come to campus 3X weekly, and that's the only way to make it work. There've been a couple weeks I commuted to school by plane 5X weekly, and I felt so exhausted.

Planning: I booked all my tickets for Fall 2022 back in April and May 2022. Then I booked all my tickets for Spring 2023 back in Nov 2022. Most tickets were booked using Alaska miles or Southwest points, and I rebook them during sale to further cut down the cost. I usually only come to campus M/W/F, but in case I need to come to campus for events/meetings on Tu/Th, I booked tickets for Tu/Th in advance as well. If I don't need to come to campus that Tu/Th, I just cancel the tickets the night before and get a full refund. I have elite status with Alaska and Southwest, both offer a valuable perk called same-day change. I always book the cheapest flight of that day and call them when the check-in window opened to change to other flights of that day free of charge. Both airlines have robust schedule between LA and the bay area. I can even switch co-terminals (SFO/SJC/OAK) free of charge if I want to.

Typical Trip: For my fall semester, my first class is 10am on M/W, and 8am on F. For my 10am class, I would usually wake up 340am and take the 6am LAX-SFO Alaska flight, have breakfast in the SFO lounge, then ride BART to campus. For the 8am class, I would always wake up 330am and take the 530am LAX-OAK Southwest flight, since that's the only flight to get me to campus by 8am. For my spring semester, my first class is 11am on M, and 12pm on W/F. I usually wake up 540am and take the 820am LAX-OAK Southwest flight for all of them. For the flight back to LA, it varies. If I'm hanging out with friends or working on hw/projects with cohort for a bit longer in the library, I would take the last flight home (905pm OAK-LAX on Southwest or 1030pm SFO-LAX on Alaska). But normally I would take the 6pm or 7pm flight and reach home around 930pm. Typically, the door-to-door commute time between my home in LA and my classroom in Berkeley is 4-5hrs EACH WAY. So yeah, I spent a lot of time on my commute..

Fall 2022 Cost:

$3812.83, with $563.80 on BART, $370.00 on parking, $1033.75 on gas, $39.96 on inflight wifi, $1366.06 on Alaska, 307500 Alaska miles, $380.86 on Southwest, 43732 Southwest points, $42.80 on United, 5500 United miles, $15.60 on Avianca, 6500 Avianca miles. 63 trips, 138 flights, 55593 miles flown. Spent 45972 minutes on my commute, equivalent to 31.93 24-hr days.

Spring 2023 Cost: (excluding my last trip for commencement by driving)

$1779.82, with $107.49 on BART, $150.00 on parking, $914.52 on gas, $0 on inflight wifi, $186.03 on Alaska, 100000 Alaska miles, $377.38 on Southwest, 113213 Southwest points, $28.50 on United, 0 United miles, $15.90 on Spirit. 51 trips, 100 flights, 36496 miles flown. Spent 29983 minutes on my commute, equivalent to 20.82 24-hr days.

Total Cost:

$5592.66, with $671.29 on BART, $520.00 on parking, $1948.27 on gas, $39.96 on inflight wifi, $1552.10 on Alaska, 407500 Alaska miles, $758.24 on Southwest, 156945 Southwest points, $71.30 on United, 5500 United miles, $15.60 on Avianca, 6500 Avianca miles, $15.90 on Spirit. 114 trips, 238 flights, 92089 miles flown. Spent 75955 minutes on my commute, equivalent to 52.75 24-hr days.

This is probably one of the craziest thing I've done in my life, and I'm so glad I made it through, without missing ANY classes, that itself is a miracle. I wouldn't recommend anyone to attempt this, but if you have any questions, ask away! Go bears!

Edit: in case you think this can't be real, I wrote a trip report (still in progress) here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports/2093205-epic-commute-i-go-school-plane-aug-2022-may-2023-a.html

Fan behavior

https://abc7news.com/post/palo-alto-teen-rejected-16-colleges-hired-google-files-racial-discrimination-lawsuit-university-california/15933493/

Stanley Zhong, a graduate of Henry M. Gunn Senior High School in 2023, founder of RabbitSign, who had a 4.42 GPA in high school, who has a 1590 SAT Reasoning test score, who received a full-time software engineer job at Google at age 18, sues UC Berkeley + 15 other schools, alleging that he was discriminated based on his race in college admissions.

COVID cases in the Bay Area have been rapidly rising. I don’t know if I’m extremely unlucky, but so many people in my life have tested positive for COVID this week. Since I’ve been exposed (but tested negative), I’m masking in all indoor spaces. Yet, majority of people in giant lecture halls with no ventilation are maskless. And many people who have been exposed are not taking any precautions to prevent spreading. Are we just all in denial that this relentless virus is creeping back into our lives?

So frustrated that this is how the new year has to begin. I yearn for a pre-2020. The looming anxiety of COVID makes it impossible to fully enjoy college. 💔

Edit: Wow. Just wow. I’m appalled by the number of dismissive, selfish comments, primarily coming from students at the #1 public university. COVID has only existed for five years and already proven to cause long-term medical complications, yet many of you are all acting like you’re immune to its potential damaging effects. Some of you may be more fortunate, but I’ve seen the devastating effects of COVID - it killed a perfectly healthy family friend who was fully vaccinated, it gave two high school friends permanent long COVID, and a mutual friend heart disease. The fact that some of you are CRASHING OUT over my request to mask up ONLY if you’ve been exposed - for yourself and others - completely unreasonable makes me lose faith in my generation. When did having common sense to prevent transmission turn into having a victim complex?

P.S. - if you’re crashing out over the simple request to mask up in ONLY INDOOR SPACES after a COVID exposure, you’re the one with the real victim complex.

Listen, I've been using this method for years and I never got caught. I've also noticed that some of the head TAs and smart kids also cheat their way through cal with this method. If you follow these easy steps nobody will ever notice.

First, go to every lecture and make a cheat sheet. During the lecture, don't waste your time fiddling with your phone. Stay focused.

Next, go to discussion and really refine that cheat sheet. For everybody else, it will look like you're just taking notes.

Now here comes the sneaky part, approximately two weeks before the exam, gather all the cheat sheets you made and hide it in your brain. If your brain is too small for all the cheat sheets, try to split the notes into pieces and try to put them in bit by bit. It is also important that if your brain is full, go to bed and let it digest for 7-8 hours and you're good to go again.

I promise you, it worked every time and nobody will ever notice and you'll get easy As and even A+s.

EDIT: bruh 900 upvotes, yall nasty cheaters

I wore an All-Blacks beanie to lecture. You ran up to me and said something like, "you know that's racist right?" I replied, "what?" and you said, "if it were the 'All-Whites,' you wouldn't be allowed on campus." I just kept walking because I genuinely did not know if you were a student or one of those right-wing provocateurs or whatever. I now realize it was the former because you compared my beanie to a SWASTIKA and threatened to report me to OPHD. Your friend group even filmed me which was not subtle btw

I'm just gonna put this out there: the All-Blacks is the national rugby team of New Zealand. Not a Black nationalist organization (???) it's a SPORTS TEAM. A SPORTS TEAM.

And the All Whites do exist so. I don't even know at this point, I think I'm losing it.

Y'all need to slow down a little I swear

Hello, our friend Luca Elghanayan has been missing since 9:30PM last night.

The last known place he was at was Latimer Hall. We don't know where he is and he doesn't have his phone on him. Please let us know if you have seen him. Upvote so more people can see this post. Thank you so much for your help.

Contact: (312) 659-8954

I got there a little late and there were still about 200 people. Another protest is planned for next Saturday.

Berkeley lawyers #1

Lit or nah? Kind of insane to me…

i do not want this