Photo by: Hannah Rosenblatt
At 10:39 p.m. on February 4, UC San Diego suffered a massive earthquake, reaching an 8.2 on the Richter Scale. University officials have stated that although no one was injured during the event, multiple buildings have been deemed structurally unsafe. Many students were off campus for the weekend, sparing them from any danger, much to the disappointment of
several Teaching Assistants who were hoping for a day or two off.
Strangely, the earthquake was centralized around the Pangea Parking Structure, causing several large cracks to split the building in two. These faults began drifting apart from one another with the newly named Laurasia Lot slowly moving towards the Marshall dorms, and the Gondwana Lot moving in the direction of ERC’s residences.
To delay this drifting process, campus security has stretched several lengths of duct tape between the two structures. When asked about what effect this would have, they responded, “It’s about all we could afford with what’s left of UCSD’s construction budget. We’re tapped out until the tuition hike hits.”
UCSD Regents began efforts to raise tuition although a head of construction was reported saying, “No plans have been made to allocate the extra funds towards this issue, so we just assume that they’re lining their pockets, ready
to run.”
In response to the aftermath of the earthquake, Chancellor Khosla
commented, “Hey, this is UCSD. We break things better, and if it’s broke, don’t fix it.” Rather than allocating funds to repair the damages, Chancellor Khosla has announced that the university needed another physical sciences building.
The largest casualty from this event was the loss of a prime smoking spot for those who partake in activities to relieve them of a multitude of maladies. When asked why many students refer to it as “a tragedy,” one local responded, “It’s such a shame; now I have nowhere to relieve my back pain.” He then marveled about how his toes were just shorter fingers and how “like, don’t you just feel that, like, sometimes you’re somewhere else.”
Several rolls of caution tape and a couple LEDs hot glued to traffic cones have been used to ward off anyone entering the premises as a large chasm had formed as a result of the fracture. The split reached a depth of at least 21 miles, allowing for a view of the mantle.
Many students began to believe that this event was the beginning of the construction of Seventh College. “I got an email that had ‘CONSTRUCTION ALERT’ in the subject and deleted it immediately as usual, so I just presumed this is what that was for,” said one unconcerned student. “Sixth College is already hell, so I figured Seventh would just be a little more literal in that sense.”
For many students, this chasm answered the long wondered question of “where are all of UCSD’s new colleges going to go?” One excited student said, “I hear that 10 Thousand Degrees has some fantastic spicy ramen.” Others berated this idea, complaining that “Housing Dining and Hades is just extorting students for as much money as possible; it’s literally run by the devil.”
