There are apparently enough of them to warrant an entire database, searchable by location, time, presenter or subject. Maybe you’ll see something that sounds enticing, even to you jaded, midtermed-out no-longer-freshmen. Cal Day is next Saturday, April 18.

Cal Day 2009- General Program [Website]
Earlier: The Grad’s Guide to Cal Day

Unfortunately, we probably could have spared our sockets the strain, because we’re not invited to the event for which the canopies had been erected. According to its web site, the California Forum for Diversity in Graduate Education is no longer accepting online registration. Which implies that registration is necessary. And, apparently, registration is now impossible. Ergo, we’re not invited. Well, now we’re just pissed that we’re being excluded. Sigh.

Image Source: Jill Cowan
California Forum for Diversity in Graduate Education [Web site]

And so did Stephen Chen:

Daily Californian editor in chief Stephen Chen, 22, said Cal Day often will sway high school students admitted to several colleges and torn about where to go.

“I tell them there’s so much more diversity and acceptance here,” Chen said. “UCLA might have cleaner buildings, but you can’t really beat Berkeley’s character.”

We think he means this kind of character.

Cal Day brings thousands to Berkeley campus [SF Chron]
Earlier: The Grad’s Guide to Cal Day

With that in mind, the Clog has compiled a shortlist of events that are – indeed! – worth the investment of your oft-wandering attention. Get ready to roll up your sleeves and get in touch with your inner child at the Archaeological Research Facility. Or you could make a pot. A lot of the museums on campus will be open to the public too, so maybe dropping a live tarantula down the shirt of a loved one at the Essig Museum sounds right up your alley. The options are endless!

* 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Cal Massage Therapy – Need a break? Pamper yourself with a complimentary 10-minute massage, offered by our certified massage therapists. Also on site, the San Francisco Institute of Esthetics and Cosmetology will be offering free beauty makeovers.
RSF

* 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Library’s $1 Book Sale. What a deal, and who knows what treasures you’ll find on Cal Day, when everything in this room is just $1!
303 Doe Library

* 9 a.m. -11 a.m.
Play With Clay. Learn how to make and decorate your own ceramics the way people did in the past. Clay available — bring your own kids!
Archaeological Research Facility, 2251 College Ave.

* 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Rock-Art Painting. Try your brush and hand — literally — at making paints and helping paint a rock-art mural.
Archaeological Research Facility, 2251 College Ave.

*11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Throw a Pot Near Sather Gate. Just steps from Sather Gate, try your hand at throwing a pot at one of six potter’s wheels. All ages are welcome!
Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, Art Studio, lower level

* 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Got Bugs? We Do! See the Essig Museum’s display of amazing insects and arachnids from its research collection, and take a look at live arthropods.
Wellman Hall, 2nd floor

* 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology Centennial Celebration! The MVZ is 100 years old this year, so it’s time to celebrate! The museum is a research facility — open to the public only one day a year. Take a look inside, learn how it’s evolved, and see some of the rarest, most fascinating specimens from a century of collecting. It’s fun for all ages: children can be field adventurers, touch live animals, play games, and see a puppet show; students learn how to get involved in research and museum programs. Museum staff will be giving presentations every half-hour. See the 1:30 p.m. presentation on “Bloods, Guts, Bones, and Flesh-eating Beetles.”
3101 Valley Life Sciences Building

* 11 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Marine Science Demonstrations. See live marine animals at the entrance of McCone Hall. Plus, in the lobby, watch demonstrations by Berkeley students of beach-bucket science and other projects.
McCone Hall, entrance and lobby

* 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Biological Science: Activities and Displays. See a touch tank with live sea animals, and discover other animals that students learn about at Berkeley. Don’t miss the games and activities for kids!
Valley Life Sciences Building courtyard

* 10 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
GamesCrafters: Undergraduate Game Theory Research. Play some of the games that freshmen and sophomores have created and added to the ongoing GamesCrafters research project.
310 Soda Hall

* 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Automated Robot Racing Cars. Student made vehicles race a 100-meter course under computer control, avoiding obstacles and staying on track.
Cory Hall, 2nd floor entrance

*3 p.m. – 4 p.m.
Having Fun With Robots. See small robots that make their own decisions, without benefit of remote control. Help set up obstacle courses, and find out how clever these robots are.
3108 Etcheverry Hall

* 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish in One Easy Lesson. Learn the language of Viggo Mortensen, Lordi, a-ha, and ABBA — or, if you prefer, Kierkegaard, Sibelius, Ibsen, and Bergman. In half-hour mini-sessions you will learn to communicate in short sentences, ask questions, and carry on a basic conversation. Come for one language, or stay for them all! (Level-appropriate for young adults, too.)
33 Dwinelle Hall

11 a.m.: Danish, Lecturer Karen Moller
11:30 a.m.: Finnish, Lecturer Lotta Weckström
Noon: Norwegian, Graduate Student Inger Nordhagen
12:30 p.m.: Swedish, Graduate Student Carl Olsen

* 10 a.m. -3 p.m.
Physics Poster Session. This poster display demonstrates the hard work and research being done by Department of Physics undergraduate students.
251 LeConte Hall

(What’s up with that last one? Did the physics department really feel the need to enter their poster display as an actual Cal Day event? Seriously now.)

For more information, check out the Cal Day site. If you’re feeling especially masochistic, feel free to browse through all 41,124 pages of the official program PDF. We lifted all our information off of it, anyway.

Cal Day 2008, UC Berkeley [Cal Day]

Event No. 1: From All Perspectives Showcase
You’ve seen it plastered on Student Action flyers everywhere–the touting of the “From All Perspectives” showcase as an amazing, awesome accomplishment. It’s a show where various student groups–from Movement Hip-Hop to the Armenian Students Association–perform in Zellerbach Hall to create a show brimming with culturally diverse Cal spirit. On top of that, it’s hosted by none other than your comedic geniuses at Jerricho Improv. The show is tonight at 6:30 p.m. and costs $5. Ticket sales pretty much go to all the participating organizations. If successful, Student Action reserves the right to place it on their campaign flyers for the next 10 years. Oh yeah, and the student group with the biggest posse gets a prize, so represent!

Event No. 2: bridges’ Senior Weekend
Alternatively, if you’re not parading diversity on-stage tonight, you’re probably encouraging it in another way–by hosting seniors from low-income high schools until Sunday for bridges’ Senior Weekend. It’s the “annual event where over 400 recently admitted High School seniors come to UC Berkeley and get a taste of what it would be like to come to this prestigious university. The students learn about the different aspects of life at UC Berkeley, from the educational, financial, and social sides.” They’ll also probably bond, make friends, get attached and learn the cultural and political reasons why they should go to Cal–to boost ethnic numbers in the long wake of Proposition 209 (and, eventually, join the movement).

We hope you all enjoy Cal Day. That includes you, prospective students who read the Clog religiously because you simply can’t wait to come to Berkeley. We know you’re out there.

Image Source: chrisjfry under Creative Commons
From All Perspectives [Facebook]
Bridges Multicultural Resource Center [Website]

Oh Berkeley campus, you really do know what turns students on. We could care less about your long, tall trees (or who’s sitting in them.) Your sexily schizoid architecture? Meh. Your scent? A grassy musk at best. Even the great phallic Campanile seems a bit too forward at times. No, what we’re really interested in is your lamppost banners, and nothing says “This is an awesome school and everyone who goes here loves it,” like big signs that say “This is an awesome school and everyone who goes here loves it.” Well, in so many words, of course.

In the not-so-off chance that lately, when you walk to class, you devote your entire capacity for sensation to the avoidance of ASUC hopefuls who all want just a minute of your time, and you haven’t noticed the new banners gracing the lampposts around campus, we’d like to point them out at this time. Just keep an eye out for artsy black-and-white portraits of Cal students with their cliche reasons for absolutely loving Berkeley scrawled on top–and in their very own handwriting, too.

We hear that the San Francisco-based photographer, Christopher Irion, who took the portraits back in January, was back for more earlier today. He’ll set up his “PhotoBooth” again tomorrow on Dwinelle Plaza “to capture the campus’s diversity in images and words,” for “a 72-foot-long community ‘billboard’ — to be unveiled on campus next fall.” Wow. 72 feet–that’s a lot of diversity.

All this hullabaloo is supposedly to honor Cal’s big 140th, but we don’t think it’s just a coincidence that all the banners happened to magically appear perfectly in time for Cal Day, that much-hyped event, during which our fair campus is inundated with thousands of impressionable new admits.

Oh, and here’s one more heads up for you: they’re giving out cupcakes tomorrow on Sproul Plaza from noon to 1:30 p.m. Be there, or be, um, without a cupcake …

Image Source: Jill Cowan
Free PhotoBooth “School Portraits” Will Capture Cal’s Diversity [UC Berkeley News Center]
Cal Day [Website]