Day 131

131/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

This is Henry Yang. He's the chancellor of UCSB and he's my new hero.  

I'm not the only one, he's a celebrity at UCSB. And he's not a celebrity in the way that Paris Hilton or The Kardashians are celebrities. The students at UCSB love the chancellor because he's accomplished something (a lot of things actually). Of course he is incredibly intelligent, but he's also very insightful and humble. He has a very real quality that I can't really describe, but it's the kind of thing that I look for in my friends and I appreciate when I find it. He sees situations for what they are and he tells things like it is. He loves the students at UCSB, too, and every year during Halloween he takes a walk with his wife, Dilling, down DP, mingling with the students. This year, I was able to go with him, using the excuse that I was shooting photos for the nexus.


We were supposed to meet at FREEB!RDS, and being excited I got there early. I had my eye out for him, and I saw him quietly approach the building and just wait. I went up and introduced myself and we got to talking. Since most of the people in IV for Halloween are from out of town, I asked him if he was able to tell the difference between a UCSB student and a random person. Without hesitation he said, "Oh yes, it's very easy." I asked him how and he said, "The easiest way to tell is that UCSB students know me, but there are other ways, I will show you tonight." I kind of laughed, partly because I knew he was right. 

Within two minutes of waiting for the rest of our party, a guy and a girl approached us. The first thing out of his mouth was, "Hey, do you know where the parties are at?" Without missing a beat, the chancellor told him no, he did not, and then asked him where the guy was from. Then the guy asked me if I knew where the parties were, and I said no. The chancellor politely asked him again, and the guy answered, saying he was from L.A. The guy asked the chancellor where he was from, and he said L.A. as well, and kind of blew the guy off. When the guy left, the chancellor turned to me and said, "See, I knew before he spoke that he was not from around here. I spoke to him for your benefit. You'll be able to tell."


The rest of the night was really surreal. We walked down DP around midnight, which is prime party time. It was so clear to me, after walking with the Chancellor, who was local and who was not. Sure, the locals would stop in there tracks and greet Chancellor Yang (which was kind of surreal in itself, because people were really stoked), but the Isla Vistans carried themselves differently. Say what you want about us being a party school, but we do it with class. The out-of-towners were rude, obnoxious, and usually past their limit on the sobriety scale. It was amazing to me how many people were just downright disrespectful. Chancellor Yang had hawk eyes, too. On a couple of occasions he would point to someone, make a guess at whether or not they were a student, and then have one of us ask them. He didn't guess wrong once.


It was also funny because we saw a ton of embodied stereotypes. I would catch them and laugh, knowing the he saw them too. There was a girl puking by a fence, tons of terrible pick-up lines, a couple of guys shoving each other getting ready to fight, and plenty of people getting arrested. The girl puking was the funniest because Chancellor Yang actually pointed her out, saying, "oh, that girl is sick." I thought it was funny because the girl brought it on herself, but the tone of his voice was so empathetic that it almost made me feel guilty for laughing.


It was too dark for me to take pictures in a lot of places, so I ended up getting to talk to the Chancellor a lot. I asked him why he thought all these people came to IV for Halloween, and his answer was so simple and succinct that it was beautiful. As we walked through the hoards of drunk people, he said, "They come here because they are looking for something. After some time they realize it's not here, and then they go home."


I've had the typical IV halloween experience (many times), but walking with the Chancellor was probably my favorite thing about this weekend. He loves UCSB, he loves IV, and he doesn't pass judgment. You can tell he honestly cares about the students, and the fact that he goes out on Halloween, and that was so easy to talk to proves it. He truly is just an awesome human being, and I hope that when I'm older and wiser I end up being as cool as him.