Above and beyond

  Illustration by JASON CHEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff

By Julie Yoshioka
Daily Bruin Contributor

From lining up along Sunset Boulevard during finals week to buy
the latest *NSYNC album to sleeping outside Pauley Pavilion for
basketball tickets, some students let nothing stand in the way of
getting what they want.

In anticipation of the *NSYNC album release, fifth-year
electrical engineering student Marissa Morelos gathered up a few of
her friends during finals week last spring and stood waiting in
line the night before the release.

“We got there an hour before midnight because we heard
they were going to start selling the CD at midnight,” she
said.

Known by most of her friends as an avid *NSYNC fan, Morelos will
have gone to six of their concerts by the end of this year. She
also tapes all their TV appearances and knows the dance moves to
most of the group’s songs.

“My friends think I’m crazy and say I’m acting
like a teeny bopper,” Morelos said. “But I think *NSYNC
is talented and they seem to be really down to earth and have good
personalities.”

She also went to Las Vegas this past weekend for a concert and
is planning to go to another concert Tuesday and to one on Friday
in San Diego.

Morelos, however, is not the only person willing to spend time
and money to see her favorite performers.

Sarah Wallace, a third-year history student, has also gone to
great lengths to see her favorite performer, the Dave Matthews
Band.

“One night I went to their concert in Irvine, left that
night and drove up to Shoreline to see them perform the next day,
and then went to their other concert in Concord the next night. It
was a three-day trip,” she said.

Wallace also recalled a more recent time when she drove up on a
Saturday night to see the band in Concord again, spent all day at
the concert on Sunday, and then drove back during a storm to take a
midterm on Monday morning.

“It was definitely worth it,” Wallace said.
“Nothing could put me in a better mood than to be at his
show.

“You feel connected and can appreciate everything around
you when you’re there,” she continued.

Wallace has seen the band perform eight times. At one concert
she even managed to sit in the center of the front row.

“I snuck into the private boxes and pretended to know the
people there and then jumped down to the next box,” she
said.

She eventually reached her front row destination and also
managed to catch a picture that Matthews threw out to the
crowd.

Wallace has attempted to sneak into backstage parties and once
even attempted to scale a fence, but security guards eventually
caught her.

The amount of importance people attach to objects is correlated
to how far they will go to get them, according to Dr. William
Parham, associate director of clinical services at Student
Psychological Services.

“The weight that people assign to that thing or experience
makes it such that they have to have it,” he said, adding
there is also a reward in the path itself people take to achieve
what they are going after.

As long as it doesn’t interfere with the way a person
normally conducts their lives, Parham doesn’t see such an
attachment to objects as harmful.

“People in general have a tendency to want things,”
he said. “We all have at times when we feel we want things
and we’ll do almost anything to do get them.”

A fan of Star Wars trilogy, third-year physics student Marcos
Gomez also devoted a lot of time to watch the classics when they
were re-released.

“I bought tickets about a week in advance and then sat in
line for about five hours before each show,” he said.

Some students are more than willing to camp outside during the
night when involving school spirit.

“I slept outside the night before the USC and Stanford
basketball games to get tickets,” said second-year political
science student Tasia Maroudas.

“My friends and I took our sleeping bags, music, food, and
homework and slept outside to get our priority numbers,” she
said. “We got to (Pauley Pavilion) about 6 p.m. the night
before the game and stayed until 7 a.m. the next day.”

Maroudas said about 35 other people slept outside that night and
someone even ordered pizza for them.

“Basketball is an exciting sport to watch and I want to
show school pride,” she said. “Everybody needs to be a
bit more willing to go the extra mile.”

While some people may stand in line to satiate their wants,
others are willing pay hundreds of dollars to carry out their
hobbies.

“I paid $150 for two “˜Dance, Dance Revolution’
mats from someone on e-bay before they came out in the U.S.,”
said third-year business economics and political science student
Matt Catania.

Though they now sell for about $20 each, Catania said the money
he spent was worth the use he got out of the mats.

He also recently put a lot of effort into buying the video game
system Playstation 2.

“I was willing to sleep outside for it,” he said.
“But when I drove by the stores at one a.m., there were
already really long lines for it.”.

Catania originally pre-ordered the system on-line in June, but
the Web site ran out of supplies.

He eventually did manage to obtain a system, but had to buy a
“bundle pack” which included the console, three games,
and a controller for $500. The system itself sells for $300, but
Catania felt it was worth to buy the bundle pack.

“I’ve basically been waiting for Playstation 2 since
March, but they kept delaying the shipping date.”

Other students, like third-year business economics student
Lorenzo Shiao, were also willing to spare sleep and spend the cash
necessary to buy the console.

“My roommate and I were planning to go to Best Buy at two
in the morning and drove past Circuit City the night before it was
released to see the line,” he said. “The news showed
that at 9 p.m. the night before, people were lined up around the
corner.”

“We didn’t get it, but my roommate has been going to
Best Buy every Tuesday to check on the shipments,” he
said.

Fourth-year business economics student Bo Leung was also willing
to spend a lot of money for his hobby, collecting shoes.

“I once spent $500 at 3 a.m. in the morning to buy four
pairs of the Air Jordans XI when I found out I could order it
early,” Leung said.

Leung, a self-described shoe fanatic, stores all of his
collectible shoes in their original boxes in a closet away from
sunlight and dirt.

“I like to keep them dead stock because they’re
worth more and they look better,” Leung said, meaning he
doesn’t wear the shoes.

He also checks a “Niketalk” bulletin board everyday
to see new releases of shoes, samples, prototypes, and information
on discounts for shoes.

Although Leung said some of his friends think he’s weird
for collecting shoes, other people have complimented his taste.

“My theory is that everyone likes to collect things, and
my thing just happens to be shoes,” Leung said.