University officials join Associated Students President Abel Pacheco, second from right, and CSUN President Jolene Koester, right, as they "break ground" for the construction of the new Student Recreation Center, Wednesday, Dec. 2. Photo Credit: Zara Aleksanyan / Staff Photographer

A golden shovel grasped by the hands of CSUN President Jolene Koester, student body President Abel Pacheco, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. William Watkins, University Student Union Executive Director Debra Hammond and University Student Union Board of Directors Chair Piero Procida scooped up the first pile of dirt during the Groundbreaking Ceremony for construction of the Student Recreation Center anticipated to open for the 2011-2012 school year.

The ceremony took place Wednesday on the Fitness Centre lawn where the audience was asked to participate in a series of leg and core stretches between each speech that was given at the event. Family and consumer science student, Jason Eubanks, led the audience through the stretching exercises, which were in an effort to support wellness along with school spirit and excitement for the construction of this new facility.

“This is a great day for us at Cal State Northridge,” Koester said.

The new recreation center will be an excuse for students to come hang out and become more involved on campus, she added.

In April 2007 CSUN students voted in favor of a referendum to increase USU fees to help fund the construction for a 100,000-square-foot Student Recreation Center, said Bryanne Knight, Student Recreation Center project coordinator.

“As folks say in construction, let’s let the dirt fly,” Watkins said.

The building is intended to be quite an upgrade from the humble CSUN Fitness Centre.

The recreation center will have nearly triple the exercise space compared to the Fitness Centre, said Knight.

The construction site for the center starts just south of Vincennes Street and stretches just north of Prairie Street on the east side of the USU. This means that the majority of the G4 parking lot will not be accessible. Knight said that the lost parking spaces will be relocated during the construction phase.

Actual construction for the center is not scheduled to take place until January, Hammond said.

The center’s plans show the inside of the building being fully utilized with exercise rooms for weight training, aerobics, martial arts and dance.
“The more in demand items you’ll see in the building,” Knight said.

An indoor track, boxing studio, a rock climbing wall, outdoor field complex for intramural sports, and an outdoor pool complex are also included inside the building.

The center is expected to have more operating hours than the Fitness Centre as well. The projected hours are Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to midnight, Saturdays from 8 a.m. to midnight, and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Other than the USU fee students pay as a part of registration, there will be no semester membership fee for using the Student Recreation Center.

About 200 new student jobs will surface with the opening of the Student Recreation Center, Procida said. Lifeguards, personal trainers and fitness room attendants are only some of the job possibilities.

As for the Fitness Centre, once it is vacated, another campus club or organization can request to occupy the space, and the CSUN Facilities Committee and USU Board of Representatives will go through all of the proposals and choose the next occupant for the space, Knight said.

Hammond said that the new Student Recreation Center will not only promote healthy living, wellness and increase school spirit, but the facility will be the envy of other universities.

Some healthy refreshments and a Wii fitness tournament in the USU Games Room followed the ceremony.

CSUN received $165,000 in federal funding for construction of the Valley Performing Arts Center. Once completed, the Valley Performing Arts Center at CSUN will serve as the premier cultural destination for thousands of residents throughout the San Fernando Valley, as well as Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Photo Credit: Caitlin McCarrick / Staff Photographer

When driving down Nordhoff Street and passing the CSUN campus, even if blinking, it’s hard to miss the construction that has been taking place since last year.

For people who have not yet seen or heard, this 160,000 square foot metal structure is transforming into what will be known as the Valley Performing Arts Center (VPAC). The VPAC will be the first large-scale venue to provide a unique cultural experience for residents of the San Fernando Valley and surrounding areas.

“The building will be completed by August 2010,” said Gailya Brown, the senior director of the Valley Performing Arts Center Campaign. The official opening, however, is set for Jan. 29, 2011.

Construction for a structure this large of a scale does not come cheap. The total cost of the VPAC is $125 million dollars and with the recent $165,000 of federal funding secured by Congressman and CSUN alumnus Brad Sherman, the funding of the center will eventually reach the amount necessary to pay the entire cost of the VPAC.

“The Valley Performing Arts Center at CSUN will serve as a world-class venue for student and professional theatrical and musical productions. This new venue will allow Valley residents to enjoy a variety of theater performances right in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, enhancing the cultural and intellectual spirit of the community,” said Sherman in a Nov. 3 press release.

The money secured by Congressman Sherman from the federal government was a grant initially intended to go toward a performing arts center located in the valley, but the plans for that project could not be moved forward so the money was given to CSUN to be used for the construction of the VPAC right on campus, Brown said.

The VPAC is a public-private partnership meaning a part of the money for the center is coming from taxpayers, but the other part is being donated by private sources. Brown said the campaign is talking to individuals, major companies, corporations and organizations that have a significant presence to pursue the donations and gifts needed to reach the campaign-funding goal of $50 million. Once some of the pending donations are accepted, Brown said the campaign will have $28 million remaining to raise.

The VPAC will be the new home for ArtsNorthridge and KCSN-FM radio, boasting an acoustically tunable main performance hall including 1,700 seats, making it an ideal place to attend symphonies, dance, opera and other theater performances. There will also be a 178-seat black box theater for the smaller types of productions, indoor and outdoor public and entertainment areas as well as a lecture hall.

The planning and construction of the building has been carefully crafted from the inside out. The designers of the structure, HGA Architects and Engineers, have created an environmentally conscious plan that fuels the building via the hydrogen fuel cell satellite plant on campus.

CSUN students Frank Nava, 19, a biology major and psychology major Elizabeth Lopez believe that the VPAC will benefit people of the community along with other students in providing a better environment to learn about the performing arts as well as watch live entertainment.

“I think it will give students a chance to get involved with more activities,” Lopez, 18, said.

Brown said in about three or four months prior to the official opening of the VPAC, there will be what she referred to as a “soft opening” in which the VPAC will seat small audiences for free as a “trial-run” to make sure all of the equipment is functioning properly, the acoustics are tuned, the building is sound and all systems are ready for the public.

“This project is going to bring the creative arts to the region in a way that no other facility currently makes available,” said President Jolene Koester in a video posted on the VPAC Web page.

More information about the VPAC, including floor plans and funding to-date, can be found online at http://www.csun.edu/imagine/.

Jaclyn Rymer / Staff Photographer

An authentic meal is not always a satisfying meal.

Barrio Fiesta of Manila offers a large menu of authentic Filipino delicacies served family-style from Kare-Kare (beef, ox-tail, tripe and vegetables in a peanut gravy) to fried bananas with Filipino ice cream. The lively ambience throughout the restaurant and reasonably priced menu has Barrio Fiesta appealing to many different crowds. However, the execution of the food lacks what the menu and environment suggests.

Pancit Malabon, according to the menu explanation, is “a Filipino noodle dish with tidbits of shrimp, pork and squid garnished with peanuts and tofu sauce.” This dish, which is only $14.70, comes on a large plate intended to serve three to four people. Unfortunately, most of the noodles were left on the plate and untouched. It arrived hot and smelling fresh, but the first bite revealed noodles that weren’t cooked through spoiling the whole plate. It was difficult to taste the flavor of the pork or tofu sauce while trying to choke down chewy noodles.

It’s hard to go wrong with an old-time favorite, so an order of Pinakbet for $11.95 seemed like a good choice to allow Barrio Fiesta a chance for redemption from the Pancit Malabon. The Baboy at Hipon Pinakbet consists of mixed vegetables and pieces of pork and shrimp slathered in shrimp sauce. This is a heavy dish, but the flavor is strong. The vegetables offer a unique pairing with the pork and shrimp that brings out the flavor in each individual element, but nothing overpowers any one food component.

A notable flavor in the Pinakbet is what the waiter referred to as bitter melon. The pieces of the bitter melon didn’t taste like a melon at all, but rather a perfectly cooked sweet potato. Overall, the Pinakbet delivered a true traditional Filipino taste.

For $11.95 Barrio Fiesta has a seafood dish that contains mixed seafood in a coconut spicy sauce called Bicol Express. Simply by looking at the dish it is impressive and an obvious delicacy to Filipino cuisine. It comes in a deep, round medal plate displaying exposed mussels sitting in their open shells, cooked shrimp that still have their heads and tails attached and chucks of squid, all soaking a yellow-brown spicy coconut sauce.

All of the seafood was well-cooked, but the spicy coconut sauce turned out to have a disappointing bland flavor lacking any sort of kick. The Bicol Express is very pleasing to the eye, but eating it calls for patience. It requires some work to take the mussels out of their shells and prep the shrimp for eating, but once that is accomplished the Bicol Express is a one of a kind Filipino speciality.

For dessert, the Halo-Halo comes in a tall glass cup layered with mixed fruit, crushed ice, purple Filipino ice cream and topped with a handful of rice crispies for $5.25. It’s difficult to tell the pieces of fruit apart as they don’t contain much tang, but it didn’t really matter because the ice cream was rich and the rice crispies and the layer of ice make for a rare crunchy dessert.

The best dish of the night goes to the fried bananas with ice cream. The bananas, which are sliced into about 10 bite-sized pieces, were served warm and soft on the inside and a crispy golden-brown texture on the outside, making a perfect complement to the smooth ice cream. The simplicity is what makes it delicious. This dish strips the mouth from tasting any of the leftover chewy noodles and leaves an ideal sweet taste for the ride home.

Photo Credit: Jaclyn Rymer / Staff Reporter

In a medium pan, toss in one part daughter, one part sister, one cup Christian, a drizzle of cook with a dash of baker, and a healthy pinch of friend. Cover the pan and allow it to simmer for 18 years to create Melissa Simon.

Simon was born in Huntington Beach but grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and it was the 1994 Northridge earthquake that created memories for Simon she still revisits today.

Ironically, many of the memories that resulted from the earthquake were happy ones that helped Simon to discover one of her favorite hobbies: cooking.

With the destruction that came from the 1994 quake, Simon, her mom, dad and older sister were forced to move in with Simon’s grandmother because the family’s home was “red-tagged,” meaning no one was allowed inside, since the house was nearly two miles away from the earthquake’s epicenter, Simon said.

During the time she spent living with her grandma, Simon said she reveled at the skills her grandma possessed in a kitchen.

“I just remember coming home from school, and I would always help her make pasta because she used to make spaghetti sauce, so she had this pasta machine and she’d roll it out, then she would put it in the machine,” Simon said. “It comes out and I got to cut it.”

This simple act and the enjoyment that came from cutting pasta noodles as a child grew into a real interest for Simon as she got older and turned into an adult, she said.

“I like to experiment with things,” Simon said. “My favorite thing to do is bake, though.”

More recently, while baking a pineapple upside-down cake for her dad, Simon had something very bad happen, a baker’s worst nightmare. Her oven broke. Simon said she is working on getting it fixed before Thanksgiving so she is able to cook dinner.

Simon has a flair for cooking, but she said she would rather not pursue a career in the culinary arts—at least not yet.

“I used to want to open my own restaurant, but I think I might do something like that when I’m closer to retirement,” Simon said.

“Maybe even just open my own little bakery,” she added. “I don’t know if I want to do it right now, full-time because I enjoy cooking and it’s like my stress reliever, so I don’t know if I want to do it as a business because I think it might not become a stress reliever anymore and it might become a stress.”

Simon is a fan of the Food Network, and out of all the chefs on the network, she said she prefers Guy Fieri because he has a unique style that appeals to a different kind of audience.

“There’s just something so different about him,” Simon said. “If you put him next to all the other Food Network cooks, he’s just kind of out there.”

Simon said Fieri will be doing a road show in December, which will be filmed at the Gibson Amphitheater. She hopes to sit in the audience when her favorite chef comes to town.

As for Simon’s best recipes, most of them consist of family recipes that are all protected inside of a box, and she sometimes uses those to invent new recipes. However, out of all her recipes, the one that holds the most value dates back to when she was first exposed to cooking.

“The one I make the most is my grandma’s spaghetti sauce,” Simon said.

The panel at the first Young Democrats meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 18 that took place at the Balboa room located in the University Student Union. Photo Credit: Raspina Jannesar / Staff Photographer

Empowering women and breaking the molds that women face on a day-to-day basis was the common theme throughout the night as the first annual women leaders lecture, hosted by the Young Democrats Club, took place Nov. 18 in the University Student Union’s Balboa Room.

The panel of five individuals representing women leaders, organized by Young Democrat members Pious Ahuja, a political science major, and Natalie Parmenter, a liberal studies major, consisted of a group of women with high levels of education and high-power careers.

Dina Cervantes, Sheena Malhotra, Suzanne Whang, Marcia Zellers and Tamar Galatzan shared their first job experiences, their inspirations in life and the challenges that women must overcome to be successful figures of authority.

“I always felt like I was this macho guy trapped in this little woman body,” said Whang, an actress of 20 years, comedian of seven years, published author and current host of HGTV’s “House Hunters.”

Most of the women on the panel admitted having a similar feeling to Whang while growing up and even today as adult women.

Galatzan, who is a Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney with the Neighborhood Prosecutor Program and a member of the Los Angeles school board, recalled a time in fourth grade when she organized a walk-out because a physical education teacher told all the girls to cheer on the sidelines while the boys played all the sports. She said all the students sat on the kickball field until the teacher allowed Galatzan to play.

Zellers, who is the head of digital media at the Fashion Institute in Downtown Los Angeles and a single parent of a 7-year-old daughter, said that while growing up she was always very feminine, doing things that many young girls do such as play with dolls, but she did notice that there was a dominance in her personality that other girls did not necessarily possess.

Family problems, ditching school and doing drugs, Cervantes said, were the primary reasons she spent time at a continuation high school for at-risk students.

“I used to hang out with gangsters,” Cervantes said. “I was looking for a family.”

Despite a troubled youth, Cervantes realized several years later that the people she was hanging out with were not her family, and even though her real family had its problems, they would always be there for her.

Cervantes graduated from CSUN a year and a half ago and is now working with the Los Angeles Unified School District as a field deputy making sure that schools’ needs are being met.

Life was much different for Malhotra, who grew up in India working in the film and TV industry, and now she is the chair of the women and gender studies department at CSUN.

While growing up, Malhotra found herself gravitating toward a liberal outlook on life, but what is considered very liberal in India, Malhotra found to be rather conservative in the United States, and it took some adjusting and a college professor mentor for Malhotra to discover what ideas she actually believed.

“I think I had very much the stereotype in my head of what a feminist was,” Malhotra said.

She said that with the help of her mentor she was able to really understand the concept of feminism and secure her beliefs.

This panel of women not only were inspired in different ways to get to the positions they are now in, but along the way they each had to dabble in different areas of work before finding their niche.

“Mine was child prostitution,” Whang said, jokingly. “My parents are very proud of me.”

Actually, Whang had her first job by the age of 17 as a dental assistant. A few years later, while studying math at Yale, she was disappointed by under-challenging math courses and found psychology more interesting. It was not until she received her masters from Brown University that she really got into acting and emerged into the entertainment business.

Galatzan said that when she was a little girl her dream job was to be an archeologist, but that dream never manifested into anything and instead she started out working in sales and customer service.

“I was 15, I sold shoes,” Galatzan said. “I can look at anyone’s feet and tell what shoe size they are.”

During college Galatzan called herself the “queen of internships.”

Today Galatzan said she loves her jobs even though it is sometimes a struggle to balance being a mom to two young boys, ages five and seven.

She is the only member on the Los Angeles school board with school-aged kids. Sometimes she must leave work to care for her sons, and that is only part of the battle.

Galatzan said that while she was campaigning to become a board member and often away from her children, other women would say to her, “If you’re really a good mother, you’d stay home with your kids.”

For Malhotra, her dream job of becoming a teacher is now a reality.

From the time in elementary school when one of her teachers had to step out of the room and told Malhotra she was to monitor the class, she found herself taking the job very seriously, threatening students with a ruler if they misbehaved. She said that having that kind of power attracted her.

Working in the marketing business was not where Zellers ever thought she’d have a career.

“As a woman I have to be three times better (than a man) to be considered competent,” Zellers said.

Although she is happy with her job, she still feels as though she is not where she wants to be.

“I always felt like this creative person,” Zellers said.

Her philosophy about life is that people go through a series of quests to find out what they want, and personally she feels as though she has yet to reach her full potential.

Maybe this is “divine dissatisfaction,” as Whang calls it; the idea that a person is always striving for more, that continues to push these five women to be confident, strong leaders and reshape how women are perceived in today’s society.

Summer school and after-school tutoring aren’t exactly the words a high school student wants to hear.

Creating robots, bridge building, mock criminal investigation and college success are words that might have a different appeal to high school students. At least that is what Javier Hernandez, CSUN director of student outreach and recruitment, is hoping.

CSUN received a four-year grant from the federal government totaling $1 million to fund an Upward Bound program with an emphasis on math and the sciences.

“The intent of the grant is to work with low-income and first-generation students to pursue careers in math and science and prepare them for college,” Hernandez said. “There is a shortage of first-generation, low-income students going into the math and sciences.”

This is the second grant that CSUN has received from the government, and the second Upward Bound program is in the final stages of preparing classes for the academic year. The classes are tailored to benefit kids interested in math, science, technology, engineering or mechanics with educational activities like creating a robot and constructing a model of a bridge, said Martin Perez, the Upward Bound program director.

Martin said that interviewing and selecting the students is the next step for the program.

Only three local high schools – Canoga Park High School, Cleveland High School and John F. Kennedy High School – have been chosen by CSUN to take part in the program. Between those three schools, only 50 students will be accepted into the Upward Bound program.

“Upward Bound is a great program,” said Pam Hamashita, principal of Canoga Park High School. “It provides resources to students that high school would not normally provide.”

The new program is developing a plan for students to excel with integrative approaches and hands-on experience that generate an interest in math and the sciences, Martin said. He wants the 50 students from the program to be able to “think outside of the box.”

The student curriculum for the year is not finalized yet, but Martin and Hernandez confirmed that there would be different workshops at least once a month covering topics such as test-taking strategies and how to fill out a college application. There will also be a Saturday academy and field trips to California colleges and universities to explore different disciplines in math and science.

When the academic year ends, the summer school component of Upward Bound begins, and for six weeks the students will be living on the CSUN campus and doing projects involving math and science, Hernandez said.

Martin said the application process should take place next week if everything goes according to schedule. The process is expected to be extensive and competitive.

Students will have to write an essay about how they will become the professionals they desire relating to areas of math and science. Hopeful students, as well as their parents, must also sit down for an interview.

The students clearly possessing motivation, a desire to go to college and a genuine interest in math and science will be chosen for the program, Martin said.

Although the 50 spots are open to all high school students within these three schools, Martin said ideally he’d like to recruit mostly ninth and 10th graders so they can stay in the program for a few years and hone a variety of skills, giving them a better chance at being successful in college.

Students aren’t the only ones participating in Upward Bound. Parents have to join in the fun as well. There will be English-language classes offered to parents, Martin said, and parents will be informed of possible financial aid assistance for their kids when the time comes to apply to college.

CSUN professors will be teaching the Upward Bound program alongside other credentialed teachers. Martin said the chemistry department and the CSUN Engineering Club have also shown an interest in helping the students.

Liberal Studies major, Andrew Papillon, 23, is a singer songwriter who also skateboards and plays roller hockey in his free time. Photo Credit: Jaclyn Rymer / Staff Reporter

Many people can sing. Many people can play an instrument. Some can write music. Andrew Papillon can do all three.

This 23-year-old CSUN student is majoring in liberal studies, but has always had a passion for music.

“I’m the only one with musical talent in my family. It’s really funny. My brother, my mom and my dad don’t have any musical talent.”

Papillon said he’s been singing for most of his life and has been playing the guitar for eight years. Although Papillon has only been writing music for about two years, in that time he has written about 20 songs, all in the acoustic rock genre.

One of the artists Papillon is inspired by is legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix.

“You can’t go wrong,” Papillon said. “Him being left-handed, I’m left-handed. It’s kind of cool to look up to someone who’s left-handed.”

ACDC and Breaking Benjamin are some of Papillon’s other favorite musical artists.

“I’m a varieties person, but mainly rock is where I lie. Classic rock, old rock, alternative, you name it, I like it,” Papillon said.

When writing music, Papillon does not have a strict formula he uses all of the time. He said if he gets an idea for a couple of lines in a song, he will write the lyrics down and come up with a melody later. Or if he gets an idea for a guitar riff, he will play it on his Fender Acoustic guitar and come up with the lyrics after he writes the melody.

“It sounds kind of nerdy, but I use my cell phone sometimes just to write down little notes if I don’t have any paper with me,” Papillon said.

Singing sometimes gives him ideas for songs, but other times Papillon uses a unique method to develop his music.

“Another way I write music is to figure out a melody and write just any random words to the song,” he said. “Then after I do that and figure out how I want to sing it, then I actually put words that mean something.”

Papillon said he would like to eventually sign with his friend’s Christian rock record label.

This singer-songwriter grew up in Orange County, but moved to Camarillo his freshman year in high school. Now Papillon works for the Ventura County Health Care Agency using his years as a liberal arts major with a specialization in business management to do data analysis and consulting work.

Between playing music, working and going to school, Papillon spends his free time skateboarding, playing video games or in the rink playing roller hockey.

“I’m half French-Canadian so (hockey) runs in my blood,” he said.

Graduating this semester, Papillon said this is something he is looking forward to after being at CSUN for five and a half years.

Despite furloughs, budget cuts and the difficult economic times, not all aspects of education are suffering as four CSUN students have received scholarships from the China Scholarships Council to study abroad at U. S. sister universities in China.

Danielle Cabello, Don Duprez, Susan Tang and Lisa Farber have either started studying in China or are on their way.

These scholarships are given by the Chinese government to allow U.S. students an opportunity to learn about and experience China from a student’s point of view.

Dr. Justine Zhixin Su, CSUN’s director of the China Institute, is excited about the four scholarships that were given to these deserving CSUN students.

“We want next year for more of our students to apply for this,” Su said.

In total, CSUN students have earned 18 scholarships from the Chinese government including the four from this year.

Cabello, an English major, is studying at the Northeast Normal University in Changchun. Duprez, an anthropology major, is attending the Wuhan University of Science and Technology and Tang is attending the Central China University of Science and Technology to work on her degree in health science.

The other scholarship recipient, Farber, a theater major with a focus in design and management, has been studying at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing for about two weeks. The academy is highly respected and considered to be the Chinese equivalent to Julliard.

“I’m honored to have been placed at this school, as many Chinese students dream their whole lives of coming here,” Farber said.

The 22-year-old has many expectations during her time in China including carrying on a conversation in Chinese and meeting people who are as eager as she is to learn about the Chinese culture and history. She hopes to make life-long friendships and gain experiences and memories with people all across the world.

In only a couple of weeks Farber has already made friends with students from various places including Germany, Hong Kong, and London. Farber said that all of these students are part of the scholarship program at the academy in Beijing and there are a total of about 30 students studying in the scholarship program.

“My experience has been stellar,” Farber said.

Other than suffering from a little jet lag on her first day of language class, Farber said the teachers are very energetic and have a relaxed teaching style.

Compared to the United States, where classes are scheduled for an exact time whether everyone arrives on time or not, classes at the Beijing academy do not begin until all the students are sitting in class.

“It’s much less formal than I’d imagined, in a good way,” said Farber. “Everyone is attentive and eager to get this difficult language under our belts.”

Only six people make up Farber’s language class. She said that it is a nice change to have small classes opposed to being in the large theater classes at CSUN.

The application process to study abroad in China was easy Farber said. Receiving a scholarship from the Chinese government that pays for tuition, books and all accommodations was definitely worth the paperwork.

One day last year, after stumbling upon a flyer posted in Nordhoff Hall with the words ‘Study Abroad for Free,’ Farber said she could not pass up that kind of opportunity. She wrote a two-page paper about why studying abroad would help her education. She got two letters of recommendation and within a few months she was scheduled for an interview.

“They basically asked me about my paper and my study plans,” said Farber. “Shortly after that I was informed that I was accepted as a scholarship candidate.”

Nerves and excitement jumped through Farber once she knew she would be studying in China, specifically because the scholarship recipients were given little information about what to expect other than the location of the school they were going to attend.

Farber has just begun to study and experience the Chinese culture and people, yet she already hopes to extend her scholarship in order to be able to study in China longer.

“There’s no other education quite like life experiences like this,” Farber said.

Cabello, a 30-year-old CSUN graduate who is now in China studying Mandarin, said her application process was lengthy but well worth it.

Originally Cabello heard about the study abroad program from Su and was interested in what the program had to offer. Like Farber, Cabello is already hoping to stay in China longer.

“I do miss some small things like real coffee and toast, but in exchange I eat the best dumplings I’ve ever had in my life. If I really yearn for American food there is, of course, a MacDonald’s within walking distance,” Cabello said.

Cabello studies Mandarin for about six hours per day in the classroom and just recently bought a bottle of water on her own.

“It seems a small victory, but given that I now truly understand the meaning of ‘language barrier’ I might as well have climbed Mount Everest,” Cabello said.

Receive a tour of the CSUN Equipment Room from 22-year-old Anthony Barajas, who has been working there for the past two years.