The reason why is that they’re both columns I wrote as audition pieces for the editorial page of the DTH. Every semester, there would be writers, typically from the general student population and not from the DTH staff, who helmed a column one day each week. Most of them were your typical college writers, trying to push boundaries with lots of talk about sex and such. And at points, I thought about giving it a shot myself, just because. As a Californian going to school in North Carolina, I was a bit of an oddity there…or so my friends made it seem. So I thought I might have some interesting thoughts to share.

And here’s where I started.

***

Before I begin, there’s something I must let you all know.

I am in love with the pets.com sock puppet.

I don’t know exactly when this love affair began. I remember seeing the commercials featuring the precocious puppet during the fall of my freshman year, and soon thereafter, I was imitating the famous “Three dollars!” love with my bare hand, and later on, with a sock, much to the delight of my friends and suitemates.

I also fail to pinpoint exactly why this fabric-and-button creation delights me so much.

Perhaps it’s because I’m from the Silicon Valley area of California, and the pets.com sock puppet lends some much-needed levity to the fast-paced world of IPOs and dot-coms. Maybe it’s the human wristwatch substituting for a collar, or the pets.com microphone attached to his argyle hand with green electrical tape.

I also enjoy the insult comic dog stylings of Triumph, of Conan O’Brien fame, but there’s just something about a sock puppet imitating the singing group Chicago that tickles my fancy.

Pretty soon, I had found a picture of the puppet online and set it as the desktop on my computer.

People started emailing my media files of the commercials, and finally, last summer, I plunked down 20 bucks to buy my own from the website. In reality, pets.com, like many online retail stores, hasn’t broken even at all, and is hoping these puppets will turn them around.

Why am I telling you this potentially embarrassing story about myself at the beginning of months of what promises to be wry and witty commentary? To give a “this-can-happen-to-you” type portrait of what results from watching too much TV? Believe me, I know I watch too much, and my mother reminds me of that fact on a regular basis.

I figured that before I revealed anything about myself, I should clue you in on one vital fact about Allison Catherine Rost: I am goofy as hell.

The pets.com sock puppet is just the tip of the iceberg. I trip over my feet on a regular basis. I have nearly every episode of ER on videotape. I know how to tap dance and network computers. I can’t properly make a bed to save my life.

I’m sure some of you are wondering what kind of moron I might be, but in reality, I think I’m as normal as I can be.

I never would have admitted to things like this several years ago. I guess one of the big things that has happened to my since I came to college is that I’ve grown more comfortable in my own skin.

In high school, I was completely self-conscious. I rarely told anyone secrets and I felt like people would laugh at me if I revealed any personal facet of myself because I was just that strange.

And while people may be laughing at me now for that same strangeness, I’ve come to realize the goofiness is an innate part of me.

A good friend recently told me, “Who cares what other people think? Life is too short to shape your behavior on someone else’s standards.”

So I may be awed by snow like a four-year-old or walk into walls in my dreams or amuse myself with a sock puppet. So what? I’ve embraced my idiosyncrasies, and so should you.

And let that set the tone for this column.

***

Although I have come to love Chapel Hill and North Carolina like a native, I still sometimes feel like an outsider.

When I first got here, the question on many people’s minds was why in the world would a Californian like myself choose to go all the way across the country to go to college.

I’ve answered the question so many times that the response is automatic: my mother grew up near Charlotte, I’m a third generation Tar Heel, I have relatives in North Carolina and scattered throughout the East Coast, and it’s a great school.

But the biggest reason in my mind is one that is difficult to articulate: I needed a change. I was born and raised in California, and while I do like it there, I needed to get the hell out.

It’s hard to explain because many people I know think California is the Promised Land where everyone walks around carrying surfboards, the roads are paved in gold, and unicorns are the primary mode of transportation.

My choice of university was also difficult to explain to people back home. One classmate expressed concern at my going to school in the middle of a hayfield, and another asked, “How can you go to North Carolina with all of that racism back there?”

Ahhh, the perpetuation of stereotypes.

There are most definitely big differences between the two locales. In California, the freeways are wider and the drivers are crazier. At least in NorCal, where I’m from, the climate varies little from season to season, and the summers are so cool that Mark Twain once commented that the coldest winter he ever experienced was a summer in San Francisco.

We get earthquakes as opposed to hurricanes, and the cuisine and the lingo differ a bit.

But when I’ve had to explain the differences to California people, it’s been hard. I usually come up with something stupid like the vegetation and the weather is different. How can I condense all I have learned about North Carolina into generalizations that (mostly) ignorant Californians can understand?

I’ve chosen my words carefully, and while I admit there are hicks here (as there are everywhere), they are mostly hidden away in the rural areas, and I can say this because before Carolina, my previous exposure to North Carolina was limited to a small mill town.

Other than that, people are people. Most North Carolinians I’ve met aren’t far off from the people I knew in high school.

It’s been fun to burst people’s bubbles on some misconceptions. For instance, I don’t see movie stars all over the place.

But while I’m bursting bubbles, it’s fair to give Carolina a turn. While I’m sure UNC is diverse compared to the rest of North Carolina, I’d like to take whoever writes the prospective student brochures to UC Berkeley, the college many of my high school compatriots attend, where the Asian student population outnumbers all others. And to those students who think Chapel Hill is liberal, I’ll just say that a popular name for that flagship University of California campus is the People’s Republic of Berkeley.

However, my favorite bubble-bursting activity involves those skeptical Californians who thought I’d come home scared of all those redneck Ku Klux Klan members. They’d get a concerned look on their face and ask, “How was North Carolina?” I surprised them all when I said, “I loved it. And I’m going back.”

It was difficult to come here in the beginning when I knew absolutely no one. I bawled like a baby the first day of C-TOPS. But I knew college was a prime opportunity to sample life on the other coast. For those of you who haven’t been west of the Mississippi (and I know there are many of you) use this time to explore foreign areas of the country, or even the world, before jobs, marriage, and kids tie you down. You could even intern in San Francisco like I did last summer. Just remember to bring your sweater.

While I may or may not move back to the Golden State after graduation, at least I have had this time here. Through years of spending summers here with my grandparents, I always felt more at home, even with the heat and humidity.

And while California may have a certain caché to it, I’ll take my sweet tea and Moon Pie over bottled water and baby spinach any day.

***

And just because every DTH column on the editorial page ended this way (correct as of the time these were written):

Allison Rost is a sophomore communications and sociology double major from Fremont, Calif. You can reach her at alikona@email.unc.edu.

This year, I celebrated my 25^th birthday. I can almost hear what’s running through your head when you take in that statement—she’s a member of a lazy, coddled generation, glued to her cell phone and computer, updating her MySpace page five times a day instead of working at an actual job. Believe me, I’ve heard a number of your kind tell me so. And while some of that is true—I’m writing this essay on my laptop at a local café—the rest gives me a headache on a daily basis.

My parents—my mother especially—raised me to think for myself. After all, they were the same way. They graduated from high school in 1967, at the beginning of the Summer of Love. They weren’t hippies or protesters; they went to school and worked hard to make the world and their families better in their own way. My mother has spent the majority of the last 30 years as a resource specialist, a teacher who helps special needs and second-language students.

It was their mindset that prompted me to get started on my own story early. I worked semi-professional jobs as early as high school, when I was a gopher for a local architectural firm. That phase passed pretty quickly, and I ended up writing and interning for magazines while I was out of college for the summer. While my peers were happy partying every weekend, it was my responsibility to earn my own spending money, so I worked hard for it—and was loath to spend it.

While I now support myself, I did live with my parents for a few years after I graduated from college, but I did it to build up my own savings and start planning for retirement before I truly set out into the real world. And now, I have an IRA, and I just bought my first new car. When I went to Rome for the first time, it was on my own dime. Not only that, but I’ve won several awards and honors in my chosen profession, and I’ve written articles on topics that will be hard to top as I grow older—and as I’m told, wiser.

I’ve never been one who enjoys having someone tell them who or what they’re supposed to be. In college, a roommate of mine was so sure that I was going to be so enthralled with my first midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show that he predicted I would soon be dressing up as Magenta and streaking my way across the stage. I never did. What he said made me that much more determined not to like it.

Perhaps it’s the same way with societal expectations, and once I enter an age where I am supposed to be responsible, that’s when I’ll go against the norm. It worries me that there’s such a dim view of the generation that’s supposed to be spending its time sowing wild oats and generally being stupid, when we’re the ones who are going to inherit all the problems the U.S. and the world is experiencing now. People may not think we’re ready to make a difference yet, but maybe that’s another expectation I’ll have to shatter.

For now, if you see a woman in her 20s waiting to cross the street, listening to her iPod, realize that she may not have been formed from a cookie-cutter. She might wear at least semi-fashionable clothing, but she also reads several newspapers a day (even if they’re online). She might like going to museums as much as she goes to concerts, and the first dial on her car radio might be NPR—but just before the indie rock station, of course.

***

It’s evident, of course, from the mention of my 25^th birthday and MySpace as the website du jour that I wrote this several years ago. What may also be obvious from the first line is that I initially wrote this piece as a potential entry in This I Believe, the now-defunct project from NPR that detailed various contributors’ religious and spiritual beliefs…in all of the forms those could take. Of course, I never actually sent it in.

But honestly, that’s OK. Because taking up this cause of defying ageism against the young is something I’ve done in writing since I was about 13. I sent letters to the editors of Time and the San Jose Mercury News, protesting unfair coverage of teenagers in the media. The latter actually awarded me a Silver Pen Award for my words on the matter when I was 16. I’ve just always been so irritated about being lumped in with the bad stereotypes of my generation that I’ve had to express it multiple times.

Is this piece the best example of that writing? Maybe not, but it’s definitely the most recent…and the most coherent! I could find some angrier examples, but it’s best to let those languish in obscurity.

When it comes to the hordes who pack up their cars and move to Los Angeles, I like to think that I don’t fit the cliché. A year ago, I decided to make a change and move out of the San Francisco Bay Area—and my parents’ comfortable suburban home. L.A. offered the same good food, the weather, the politics that I couldn’t stand to leave. Best of all, I didn’t have to change my license plates.

Really, it was just an exercise in laziness.

I carried the typical NorCal resident’s cynicism for anything Hollywood, and I came here with no desire to see my name in lights. I don’t have a screenplay to sell. Getting into the hottest club isn’t my ultimate goal in life. Somehow, I thought this would be evident soon enough; that I’d get a steady job and join the throngs of regular people sitting on the freeway on our ways to work. I’d put the same amount of thought into a place to live—after all, I’m the type who drives my car down Rodeo Drive even though it rattles and is missing a side mirror. Something nice and comfortable, no matter the ZIP code, would suit me just fine.

My home base at first was a friend’s couch in Mid-City; from there, the Palms looked like the best option, though my roommate and I didn’t restrict ourselves too much. I spent my weekdays temping and looking for work, and on the weekends, the two of us drove around with a map and a notepad, charting addresses and bedrooms and dollar amounts.

We started with Craig’s List and Westside Rentals—the old stalwarts—but after we found that many of the best-looking places weren’t listed anywhere online, we just started calling numbers on For Rent signs while idling at the curb. Thanks to that strategy, we found a gorgeous, refurbished duplex in Silver Lake going for half the price it could reasonably get. (Seriously, it had central air and a washer/dryer included!)

After two days of gloating over our good luck, we returned with our applications, only to find that our potential landlord had already promised the place to some neighbors, who caught the same sign on his garage door while walking down the street. In the crush of our disappointment, we figured that this was surely the first time that anything in L.A. had ever been accomplished by walking.

Losing that place was when it started to hit me—I actually wanted some of that L.A. glitz and glamour I had been so sure I didn’t need. It didn’t matter to me that Silver Lake was reportedly a hotbed for hipsters. I wanted the gorgeous apartment with the view of downtown. I wanted the leafy, charming neighborhood and a home with character. L.A. is renowned for being a place where almost everyone driving the streets isn’t quite pretty enough, quite charming enough, quite whatever enough.

I still didn’t want the acting career, the film credit, the nod from the bouncer. All I wanted was for L.A. to deem me important enough to get that apartment.

We continued our search deflated and half-hearted, knowing that nothing we could find and afford would live up, but also needing to find a place before we became permanent refugees. From the far outskirts of Santa Monica to Valley Village to Echo Park, we toured apartments in our price range and plunked down the money to apply to several perfectly acceptable places, which were beyond sterile and boring in comparison. Our passion for the search had slipped away along with that fabulous apartment.

But then came a moment we couldn’t even have scripted—that same potential landlord called us back. His next-door neighbor had just gotten notice from his tenants and would have a duplex with the same number of bedrooms (and the same price) available in a month. By this point, we had credit checks and deposits pending for other places, and an even more anxious deadline looming—I had to be off my friend’s couch in two days, because she was moving as well. So, my roommate and I rushed over, breathless, trying to temper our excitement for fear of offending the karma gods once again, but failing miserably.

And this place turned out to be better than the first. Old Spanish architecture, beautiful antique furniture included, an expansive back deck, sizable bedrooms. Having learned our lesson the first time, we submitted our applications that day, before anyone else even knew the place existed—and not knowing exactly how we would bridge a month-long housing gap.

On a deceptively clear morning in late May, I woke up and realized that for the first time in my life, I didn’t know where I was going to sleep that night. We had approval for one of the sterile, boring apartments and could have moved in that day if we wanted, but our names were still in the hopper for the Silver Lake place, even though its availability was a month away. Just the credit and reference checks—and a small shred of hope—remained. While we waited, I called around to executive and long-term apartment complexes, saying my “significant other” and I might need a place to stay for one month, starting that night. Many laughed at my request, but wished me good luck. I finally secured a space for us at the cheapest place I could find—an ExtendedStayAmerica in an industrial section of Gardena. The placement of our accommodations on a map was a bit frightening to this SoCal newbie, but we didn’t have much of a choice.

That afternoon, while I helped my friend load up her moving van, I got the call—my roommate and I had the Silver Lake place. If we wanted it. There was absolutely no question that we did, but in our elation, we realized that our next challenge we would be getting over our fear of L.A. geography. We called and canceled the sterile, boring apartment with glee—but when we opened the door to our one-bed hotel room and saw how much room that one bed actually took up, we started counting down the days for the next month.

That time was spent cooking pasta in a kitchenette the size of a closet, grabbing clothes out of drawers while trying not to surf off an inflatable mattress and chatting up college basketball with the security guard in the lobby. We received a full education on the virtues of the 405 vs. the 110 and battled the supposedly complimentary wifi a nightly basis. Yeah, the parking lot was a bit scary at night, but even over the course of a month, we managed to make ourselves a home there.

Yet when we finally received the keys to our beautiful apartment, the first thing I did was sink to the floor and hug the carpet. My roommate followed, and we just laid there, awestruck. After everything that had happened, in L.A. terms, I had finally made it.

***

Speaking of articles I wrote on spec, this is something I put together for the Sunday magazine of the Los Angeles Times. I actually met the magazine’s editor at an event in which personal essays were the main topic and sent it in to him soon after, and he declined. The first-person piece is a form that I was still trying to get the hang of—and I’m still not sure I have it down—so it wasn’t a surprise. But like the trip to Rome and Cairo that was mentioned last week, this was a situation that had to be immortalized in writing somehow. And both events took place in 2005, which was quite a banner year.

Of course, I have to acknowledge the fact that there are three of us in the above photo and only two roommates mentioned in the course of the story (hence the sic in the subhead). Truth is, the actual situation was a bit more complicated than this story lets on—my friend (on the left) and I (in the middle) did move down to L.A. from the Bay Area, and we were the ones going around on apartment searches. But we ended up with a third roommate—my friend with whom I originally stayed when I first arrived in Southern California—and the situation only arose because the great place we found happened to have three bedrooms.

See how complicated this is? And why it made more sense to streamline the narrative?

Still, all the nuances of the story needed acknowledgment…especially because there’s a good chance my roommates could read this. (xoxo, ladies!)