Hidden study, relaxation spots on campus

As much as UC Davis students love cramming their brains in cramped classrooms and crowded study spaces, some have found that a little sunlight and nature can help their studies along. UC Davis’ numerous courtyards, conveniently tucked away in the center of or in between buildings offer benches, lush grass and carefully landscaped gardens for students to enjoy.

“It gets some of the load of studying off,” said Mick Tiago van Eck Dos Santos, a third-year environmental sciences major. “I’m not the kind of person who feels happy after spending three hours in a dark building with some artificial lights on, whereas outside there’s nice weather, some nice trees and plants.”

Though many students find studying in courtyards to be a pleasant change to their indoor routine, others are too absorbed in their studies to even consider the enjoyment. Christine Tech, a third-year computer science major, was studying inside Robbins Hall with a clear view of the Robbins Hall courtyard, but said she had never noticed it.

“I go straight from the parking lot to my class, to my next class, back to parking lot, back home,” Tech said. “Even during hours when I don’t have class […] I still have to study.”

Though sometimes overlooked by the busy student, courtyards can reflect the nature of the buildings and, by extension, the studies they are attached to. Visible from the building but hidden behind a greenhouse at the end of a parking lot, Robbins Hall courtyard is a quaint, smaller space where a patio table and trellis offer a private spot surrounded by an eclectic garden. It echoes the offbeat, earthy style of the Robbins Hall building, which houses plant science classes and features mosaic columns on its mustard-yellow facade.

At Cruess Hall, a modern, quirky building that holds design classes, an art piece of chairs can be seen in the courtyard, balancing on a single leg or whimsically suspended in a perpetual fall off the roof. In front of the Plant Sciences Building, a “Salad Bowl” garden of vegetables can be found, neighboring a collection of labelled plants and a brick wall with ivy obscuring a mosaic sign that reads “University of California.” Repeating patterns of white-trimmed classroom windows surround the patio tables of the concrete Chemistry Building courtyard and juxtapose with the jumbled foliage of trees that both extend to the upper levels of the building and hang low to brush one’s shoulder while walking to class. Voorhies Hall encircles a beautifully landscaped space where a large central fountain splashes serene ripples through a circular pool, accompanied by delicate roses and trees — a sight so picturesque that entering the space gives one the impression of stumbling upon an undiscovered eden.

With such an abundance of open spaces at UC Davis, courtyards rarely have more than a few people in them at a time and allow for intimacy in a spacious setting.

“It’s normally pretty quiet,” said Katherine Kays-Hoepkes, a third-year math major, who frequents the courtyard in between the UC Davis School of Education and Sproul Hall. “That’s why I like it. It’s quiet and I can hide from people.”

The School of Education courtyard, where Kays-Hoepkes was, invites visitors to sit and relax on its wide grassy area or on the benches bordering it, with trees and patio covers offering shade from the hot sun. Kays-Hoepkes noted how the ample spacing between benches in the School of Education courtyard lent itself to quiet conversations and peaceful solitude.

Other courtyards create different atmospheres.The Hart Hall courtyard is simplistic, yet has its own charm. A lush grassy area, dotted with several trees providing shade, gently slopes towards a stucco portico painted a pale orange that contrasts the vibrant green grass. One of the more popular courtyards, students can often be found lying on the grass and enjoying the shade from the trees there.  

“There’s my friend the magnolia tree,” said Cristina Murillo-Barrick, a second-year community development graduate student, gesturing to a tree in the Hart Hall courtyard. “We hang out sometimes when I meditate.”

Murillo-Barrick finds herself outside enjoying UC Davis’ outdoor landscape almost every two hours. Her previous job had her working outdoors daily and she dislikes staying in her windowless office and stuffy classroom all day. The courtyards remind her of the world outside her office.

“It gets me out of my head and into a larger space where I can stop being so theoretical and realize I’m just a little organism in the world,” Murillo-Barrick said. “Things are happening! It’s spring, it’s summer, it’s winter.”

She has found that the courtyards not only help her, but also help her community and regional development and African American studies classes learn. She brings them outside for discussion regularly.

“I think conversation becomes a lot more organic once you’re in an open space. A lot of the classrooms in Davis are really crammed,” Murillo-Barrick said. “We discuss a lot of really charged issues […] and I think that the setting makes a really big difference. The desks are all crammed together and people can’t engage as naturally or separate if they wanted space from each other. So I think that bringing folks into a less formal space where it’s more open helps people have conversations in a more comfortable way.”

Since UC Davis’ courtyards are enclosed by the buildings where students have classes, they are convenient and easily accessible. Students like Kays-Hoepkes and Murillo-Barrick said they go to courtyards anytime they have breaks in their schedules.

However, despite the convenient enjoyment to be had from UC Davis’ courtyards, some students still find themselves too occupied with their studies to spend time in them.

Jean-Yves Merilus, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in geography, said his offices are right by the Hart Hall courtyard but does not spend time in the space very often. However, he made a remark on the benefits of being outside.

“I usually work in my office and I enjoy having two computers, but of course that’s a challenge in terms of [getting] sunlight,” Merilus said. “It feels good [to be] out and sitting on the grass — it’s relaxing.”

Written by: Kristen Leung — features@theaggie.org

Cultural organizations provide space for students to connect, make friends

There are hundreds of clubs for the thousands of students at UC Davis, but joining a club doesn’t have to be about academic interests or shared hobbies. Whatever one’s background, culture, ethnicity or religion, there is most likely an organization on campus that offers an open space to call home, a space to identify with others.

“I love my culture and my heritage and I’m very proud of being Indian, so seeing something like the Indian Student Association was something that I was very excited about, something I was very drawn to,” said Vrinda Gupta, a second-year international relations and Asian-American studies double major. “The main reason I joined is because I wanted to really find a community of people that I could relate to and find my own little chosen family.”

Gupta is the director of community affairs for the Indian Student Association (ISA). Although ISA is a social club that provides cultural events for the Indian diaspora on campus, Gupta said the organization has been focusing on social awareness and social justice over the past few years.

“Just recently we had a sexual violence awareness workshop, things like that to help our community stay educated and keep us more involved,” Gupta said. “Every year we also have a philanthropic aspect to our organization [where] we donate to a charity or some sort of philanthropic organization. We have a Culture Show every year, so this year it will be on May 21st,, and the proceeds of that show will go to [the organization] Visions Global Empowerment.”

The main mission of ISA is to educate others on and celebrate Gupta and her peers’ South Asian identity, but Gupta points out that it doesn’t matter where someone is from or what their ethnic or religious background is — anyone is welcome to be a part of the organization. This is the case for many other cultural groups on campus as well, including the Taiwanese-American Organization (TAO).

“Our members are really diverse, it’s not just limited to Taiwanese or Taiwanese-Americans,” said Michael Ng, a third-year international relations and history double major. “TAO is mostly a social and cultural club [and] is a really diverse club.”

As someone born and raised in Taiwan, Ng describes his journey to joining the club as one of obligation to the greater Taiwanese community, but his decision was also influenced by the goal of finding a comfortable space with people he can relate to.

“I think the reason I joined this club freshman year had a lot to do with identity issues,” Ng said. “I felt like I was trying to get this sense of belonging because I I felt like I was too Taiwanese for Americans but too American for Taiwanese. So that’s one reason, just to see what I could find in this club, to find companions and cultural identity, which I successfully did. It’s basically my family now.”

One organization that bridges the gaps between multiple identities but connects on a common ground is Aggies for Israel (AFI). Israel itself is a central symbol for the three faiths Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and AFI works with the intention of educating students about Israel from multiple perspectives.

Arielle Zoken, a first-year undeclared humanities major and the programming chair for AFI, has family that lives in Israel and spent last year there herself. Many of the organization’s members’ identities are connected to Israel for different reasons, but despite the differences, Zoken feels very connected to the other members.

“Aggies for Israel has really connected me to the pro-Israel community here,” Zoken said. “Also making new friends across the board and having a space where I can dialogue. Because of Aggies for Israel and the connections I’ve made, I was able to kind of connect with those who understood the pain that I went through last year and how difficult it was, and that’s because Aggies for Israel had connected me to those people.”  

Another group on campus that serves as a social space as well as promotes education about their cultural past is the Armenian Student Association (ASA).

“Probably the biggest event would be the mock wedding that we host,” said Gayane Malayan, a fourth-year biological sciences major and music minor. “A big part of Armenian culture is the wedding [… as] it’s a very big formal religious ceremony, which we don’t really follow in the mock wedding because the main purpose is to have fun. At least half [of the people who come] are not Armenian and are just friends who get invited, so it’s a way for us to show them how we like to have fun.”

But the ASA isn’t all social events. One of the organization’s most notable events of the year is on April 24th, when members stand on the Quad and hold signs and chant in protest of the United States’ lack of recognition of the Armenian Genocide, a tragedy of the early twentieth century that affected the lives of Armenian students’ ancestors.

“[I like] being able to protest and have the same cause as other Armenians,” Malayan said. “Standing here and yelling things out, I don’t feel embarrassed, I don’t feel scared or nervous. I feel like I have the support of other Armenians, because […] our history is very rich and it has a lot of tragic things, but it has a lot of very important things.”

Being able to connect with other Armenians in college was not something Malayan anticipated she would want when she moved away from home, where she had been surrounded by an Armenian community. However, since becoming a part of ASA, interacting with people who share her heritage and her culture has been extremely comforting.

“[I appreciate] being able connect with those people, like Armenians, it doesn’t matter if they know you or not, they are going to treat you like you’re close, like you’re family,” Malayan said.

This situation is similar to the experience of Sasha Safonova, a fourth-year linguistics major and officer for the Russian Cultural Association (RCA).

“I grew up in Sacramento, so that’s predominantly Russian, so for me […] I wanted to see if there were different types of Russians in Davis,” Safonova said. “I met all these Armenians, Russians, from all over and who aren’t necessarily that cookie-cutter mold from Sacramento. I’m from a super Russian area, and I wanted to be a part of that but also see what else is out there, and that’s exactly what I’ve found here.”

Kristina Harmonson, a fourth-year Russian and sociology double major and the president of RCA, chose UC Davis partly because it offers the Russian major. Harmonson found the RCA as the perfect outlet to find people to connect with and expand her knowledge of Russian culture.

“I love the language, the culture, the people, the food, the everything,” Harmonson said. “I couldn’t be without it, and from the moment I met this club I felt like I was in a family setting. I felt so included, and that’s where most of my friends come from.”

Although it’s a fairly new club, like many other cultural organizations on campus, the RCA is predominantly social, but sometimes offers members lectures and other educational opportunities about history and politics. Some of the most popular events the RCA hosts are its cooking nights, where new faces even Safonova and Harmonson have never seen before tend to show up.

Harmonson said the best part of being in a cultural organization like RCA is the leadership experience and friendships.

“Although you could identify with a lot of people, just meeting people who come from similar cultural values [is nice],” Safonova said. “I’ve met a lot of Russians who are from all sorts of different religions, but just knowing that you have a lot of cultural similarities and that you can understand […] why people act the way they do, […] we can all identify with that. [RCA] is small enough where you can actually build lasting friendships.”

Written by Marlys Jeane — features@theaggie.org

Food competitions around town test endurance

A myriad of beaming, proud faces fill up a wall at the CoHo South Cafe. These are the faces of daring challengers who have successfully completed the Quad Stack Challenge — a food challenge that requires competitors to eat around two pounds of cornbread and chili in five minutes or less.

“Someone orders the Quad Stack and then they have to say, ‘I want to do the challenge,’” said Hayley Rappoport, a student manager of the CoHo South Cafe and a fourth-year genetics and genomics major. “They can have a glass of water if they want but nothing else to drink. They have five minutes to finish it […] and if they do, we’ll take their picture.”

The Quad Stack Challenge at the South CoHo is one of several different food challenges that exist within the Davis community. The staple of the South CoHo is the Chili Stack which consists of two pieces of cornbread, two scoops of chili and optional toppings of cheese or onions all heaped onto one plate. Variations of the Chili Stack include the Triple Stack, three slices of cornbread and three scoops of chili, as well as the daunting Quad Stack, four pieces of cornbread and four scoops of chili.

Rappoport, who has worked at the Cafe for over three years, said she has seen about 30 to 40 attempts of the challenge, but has seen only between 10 and 15 successful completions. She also said she has witnessed a few challenges gone awry.

“I saw someone choke,” Rappoport said. “Her strategy was to pick up the cornbread and try to shove it in. I saw someone else who was trying to dig in and in the process they spilt their water with their elbow. We did pause the [clock] for him.”

Though Rappoport herself has not attempted the challenge, nor have any of her colleagues, she has seen successful competitors finish the Quad Stack Challenge in a couple minutes and ask, “Is that it?” According to Rappoport, the record time for the challenge is around one minute.

However, ambition sometimes gets the best of hungry customers. According to Redrum Burger owner Jim Edlund, newcomers to the restaurant who ask for the “biggest burger” on the menu are met with the one-pound Aggie Pack Annihilator burger.

The Aggie Pack Annihilator burger, which is four sizes larger than the average Redrum burger, can be purchased as a meal with a large side of fries and a large drink for $13.49. Edlund said the Aggie Pack Annihilator burger, named in support of the Aggie Pack, was first sold in 1997.

“It starts out as two half-pound patties [with] double cheese on it,” Edlund said. “We make it with the normal stuff we have — mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion [and] pickle. We also add bacon.”

Edlund said Redrum Burger serves around 15 to 20 Aggie Pack Annihilator meals a day on the weekends and five to 10 meals on a weekday, or around 3,000 meals a year.

“About 10 years ago, a man and his son came in […and] ate an Aggie Pack Annihilator,” Edlund said. “On his way out, his dad says, ‘Well I don’t think you can eat another one.’ I interjected myself into the conversation and I said, ‘If you can eat the second one and finish it, it’s free. If you only eat a portion of it, you’ve gotta pay for it.’ He ate both in 25 minutes.”

Redrum Burger used to hold the Fastest Beef Eater in the West contest, during which competitors would attempt to consume just the Aggie Pack Burger in the shortest period of time; the record time for consuming the one-pound burger is one minute and 57 seconds. This July, to celebrate its 31st year in business, Redrum Burger will bring back the Fastest Beef Eater in the West contest in the form of three competitions — one for females, one for males and one for those 50 years and older, according to Edlund.

“The winner will get one month’s free food, second place gets a week and third place gets a weekend,” Edlund said. “We’re trying to get belt buckles made.”

Edlund himself said he has successfully finished two Aggie Pack Annihilators, after which he “went right to sleep.”

Across town, Taqueria Guadalajara serves the arm’s-length, three-pound Super Giant Burrito, which has been a staple of the restaurant since 2002.

“A lot of our students were asking, ‘Do you have something bigger?’” said Rigo Hernandez, the manager of the business. “It first started out as a little game, [where] we would make this if you could eat it. We started making the Super Giant and we kind of started a little competition [where] you had to eat it in a certain amount of time and we’d take a picture and post in on a wall — a little wall hall of fame.”

The enormous burrito is available for purchase for $13.99.

“The Super Giant Burrito [is] two, 13-inch flour tortillas side by side and the fillings are rice, beans, guacamole, sour cream, cheese, pico de gallo and your choice of meat,” Hernandez said.

After polaroids of successful competitors were vandalized, the wall was taken down. Taqueria Guadalajara now holds a Super Giant Burrito eating competition once a year for their Cool Summer Days event in June.

“We throw a little party for the community, and that’s when we do a burrito challenge,” Hernandez said. “My cousin is in charge […] and he has a championship belt — like a wrestling belt – so whoever can finish it the fastest [wins].”

Woodland resident Carlos Bautista has won the competition once and placed second twice. The year he won, Bautista beat out five other competitors with a time of around four minutes. He will compete again this year with a new strategy.

“Someone told me to just open up the burrito and eat the meat first and then just roll up the tortilla,” Bautista said.

Many have taken on the Super Giant Burrito, but, for Hernandez, it’s “impossible” to eat in one sitting.

“I can barely eat the super burrito, but you’d be surprised,” Hernandez said. “We’ve had some petite, young ladies that would finish that burrito in one sitting.”

If the Super Giant Burrito seems an unconquerable feat, Hernandez said, “for parties, it’s a great idea.”
Written by: Hannah Holzer – features@theaggie.org