Finals yell..

It was the fall of 1999, and I was getting ready for finals at the end of my first quarter at UCLA. As Sunday approached of the upcoming finals week, I began to hear rumblings about finals yell.  I was told that every night during finals week students would take a break at midnight and yell outside their houses and apartments.  I thought it sounded like a cool idea and students said that past final yells were a good way to blow off steam and have some fun, little did I know how much fun was to be had.  One of my friends Roneal had an apartment overlooking the street on the 5th floor of his apartment building so we decided to stand on the balcony there and yell Sunday at midnight.  We went outside and yelled joined by thousands of other students across Westwood and the UCLA campus.  It went quite uneventful until students began to throw stuff out onto the street at cars and pedestrians.  Although I cannot legally say if I was involved in said throwing of things due to my attorney's advice I thought it was quite entertaining, and I couldn't wait for the next night's final yell.  As Monday rolled around news of the throwing spread across campus and the following night every street had trash on it and some of our neighbors ran out on the street and lit the trash on fire.  The fire's were promptly put out by other students.  This continued all week to the point were fire trucks were on hand in case more fires began.

Flash forward to the winter quarter and finals week began to roll around again. This time things were much more different, although we were back at Roneal's place things were getting crazier.  Our neighbors had placed old furniture on the street in anticipation of midnight and when the clock struck twelve the furniture was on fire in the middle of the street.  A fire truck came to put the blaze out and when it left students cheered only to be back on the street in ten minutes lighting more furniture and throwing things at passing cars and the firefighters when they returned. Even pedestrians were not immune, a man across the street videotaping the madness was a victim of trash being flung at him and verbal assaults from Roneal and a few others on the balcony.  His reply was, "I got you on tape," while pointing the camera at us.  Every street in Westwood had students throwing trash and lighting fires on the streets.  It got so bad that the University Police and LAPD were forced to come out hunting down students and becoming victims themselves.  On the second day a news crew came out to videotape the madness and passing students began throwing objects at the cameraman while he was live, angering the reporter to curse at the students while on live TV.  The next night had a huge police presence before midnight to anticipate and craziness, one of my friends JV and my brother were driving around and began trying to peel out at street corners resulting in four police officers pulling them over and giving them a verbal warning. Finals yells got a lot quieter after those semesters but it was nice to be a part of UCLA history.  Although most of this sounds fake and made up I have a link to prove it, at the Daily Bruin.  One student said it best, "it was like Beirut out there man," and it was it really was.  Just another day in LA.

Disclaimer:  Some of the events might have been embellished for comedic effect.  JV is ok and still peeling out on street corners while Roneal is still shouting out verbal assaults.  According to my attorney's this story can not be used as evidence in any type of prosecution.