The Good News is that it's cheap to live up here. The Bad News, there are reasons for that. Among them, it's hot as Hell (more a redundancy than a comparison). Nothing– and I mean NOTHING== works properly here. Butte college is a joke. An embarrassment. They outfit a football team (an enormous hemorrhaging of funds unless you happen to be University of Texas, and make millions off of television contracts. Butt(e) College's team is called the Roadpeckers or something…). Outfitting one or two players costs enough to properly outfit a computer lab for an entire year— and the school does not even have a SINGLE ONE, so outfitted (a criminally stupid misallocation of resources in MY view)! The campus itself is literally out in the middle of nowhere (zoom out for an even more unbelievable view), there are absolutelyNO regular transit buses serving the site, so students NOT owning automobiles (and they are legion) are forced to rely on the most unbelievably erratic group of shuttle buses ever to inexplicably find themselves on the same continent– much less the same county! The computer system is entirely unnavigable, I've only asked one administrative person who has be able to even answer ONE question successfully (or even try). …
Chico State students (Chico State, btw, is ostensibly a University, which you would be entire unable to determine based on the students' blandness, lack of curiosity, which is not to mention their world-renowned, prodigious affinity for alcohol) remind me of nothing so much as wanna-be-cool high school students, and Butte College programming students occupy themselves with video games while the Professor prepares to teach a class.
I will be posting photos to demonstrate my assertions here. It's not hard to randomly point one's camera in the direction of an incriminating view, any day of the week you happen to be out taking pictures.
It's not all bad. Despite the fact that I alternately refer to the area as Zaire or The Ozarks, there are actually some very nice elements up here. Interesting Geology in certain areas, not that you'd able to find any mention of this in any book! (and I've looked) And the churches up here seem to be much more involved in Social Services than does the local government (or the alleged liberal Bay Area, for that matter– go figure…). They have a couple of good rep houses for movies: I saw Winter's Bone yesterday for $5 (there were absolutely no Chico students identifiable in the audience, despite the theatre's proximity to said alleged University).
But anyway, This was a lot more negative than I really intended, so I'm not making this posting fully public, but some things had been building up inside, and…
Anyway, I'll be doing more postings about the area in the future, and they'll almost undoubtedly be much more positive.
About the whole football thing. I think Football is ranked somewhere between Muslim and Catholic in members of Organized Religions isn’t it? In numbers as well as some of their practices. Diet, Study, Dress Code, Rules, Devotion to Leaders. I could go on.
Don’t get me wrong– I LIKE football. But it costs a ton of money to run a football program, and there is VERY little STUDENT interest in the Football team. This is a lot of money that could go into things like, um… classrooms, curriculum— at least ONE fully equipped computer lab!What they have now is a huge budget shortage (which everyone is dealing with), and to spend that much money on something that contributes absolutely NOTHING to the greater society borders on CRIMINAL insanity.
Have you noticed that everyone you like– everyone who’s cool & decent– is having financial problems, while everyone you read about who are well off & rich are idiots and/or scumbags?
Makes you wonder who’s in charge…
I wish I were independently wealthy so I could come rescue you from that Hell hole. :down:
Makes you glad you are broke, doesn’t it? :worried:
Oddly– No…:whistle:
😀
Hi Robert, I read it earlier, I just don’t know what to say.
I understand your frustration. I adjunct for Missouri State and a few years ago they put on hold improvements to classrooms (they now have the one building completed) while pouring 60 million into a new basketball complex. They think it is high tech to give instructors computers, but Ozarks Technical community college has them in over half the classrooms for all the students as well as instructors. Did you like Winter’s Bone? The story takes place in my part of the country, which has the unfortunate designation of the most meth labs busted in the United States.
I’ve lived very close to not one, but two, areas with that designation: Lake County, California, which is one up from Sonoma County (to the East), and Paradise, CA, which is literally a fifteen to twenty minute bus trip from my front door.Loved Winter’s Bone. Great actress in the lead role, and John Hawkes has always struck me as a very good actor. Good story, too.