Being a member of the 1300 hall of Santa Cruz has its perks, to be sure. We’re not ones to complain, being blessed with such things as free barbecued ribs every Friday, Swedish massages in the hall lounge after 8 and the sole exception to the “no strippers in the dorm” rule; and yet, we find ourselves needing to say something.
Our precious right to sleep was flagrantly violated at an ungodly hour of the morning. At 6:30 in the morning, the residents of this hall awoke to what at first seemed to be the earth itself splitting apart in the agony of the Apocalypse. Upon closer observation, it was determined that the sound – not unlike a 747 buzzing the dorms – was caused by a 14 HP, twin V, gas-powered motor. We looked out our windows and saw a UCSB Astro van and a trailer containing this thunderous motor and two tanks of propane parked in front of the University House, home of Chancellor Henry T. Yang.
Our current sleep ruined, the daring Ed Dunn decided to go out and investigate. In his words: “I walked across the street and saw tubes leading from my new motor friend through the front door of Chancellor Yang’s house. My first thought was, ‘Ok, maybe a toilet overflowed and they need to pump water out.’ Understandable. I’m still not happy about it, but understandable. Then my eyes made their way over to what appeared to be a floor buffer. No way are they buffing floors at 6:30 a.m. I was not just awakened because someone needed shiny hardwood.
“Just as I was about to leave, someone appeared in the chancellor’s doorway. I walked over and asked, ‘Excuse me, what’s going on here?’
“‘We’re cleaning the carpets,’ he replied. After I had picked my jaw up off the asphalt, I inquired if he realized that it was a bit early and some people were trying to sleep, motioning toward the 15 or so windows that directly face the chancellor’s house. He shrugged his shoulders and meekly said that ‘she wanted us here at six.’
“Being a freshman and still a bit unsure of what’s what around here, I asked whose carpets had abruptly become so soiled that it couldn’t wait ’til the sun had risen. Apparently seeing the humor in the whole situation, my new friend replied with a smile, ‘This is the chancellor’s house.'”
Again, we don’t like to complain, but due to an unfortunate confluence of geometry, architecture and plain bad luck, the road we’re right next to causes even the smallest four-banger Honda to rumble by like a garbage truck with a custom exhaust. Don’t even get us started on when an actual garbage truck drives by. We’re lucky to get six hours of sleep a night, so each hour is precious to us and we don’t like having one stolen. Now, we can appreciate that there are probably a few occasions when Chancellor Yang has been roused by rowdy students looking to tarnish the immaculate reputation of the 1300s residents, but we ask for nothing more than the common courtesy that we are entitled to as UCSB students and human beings. We have posted and observed quiet hours that run from 9:30 p.m. to 9:30 a.m., Sunday through Thursday. We would greatly appreciate if the chancellor would observe these quiet hours as well. We don’t expect, but would appreciate, an apology from Chancellor Yang and his crew of decibel jockeys, who were responsible for our rude awakening this morning.
Chancellor Yang, we live right across the street, we are your neighbors, my window is directly across from your front door. Come over anytime, we’ll be up.
David Fuad is a freshman undeclared major and Ed Dunn is a freshman pre-biology major.
