)N LOCATION
U OF VIRGINIA: Amazing!
If her high school friends
could see her now, that is
what they would say about
A.J. Brownstein. A.J., a
blonde, 90-pound beauty, ap-
peared last spring as the cover
model on the University of
Florida 1987 Women of UF
Calendar. Yet the 22-year-old
University of Virginia first-
year law student admits to
having been unattractive in
high school.
"When I was in middle
school, I was hated;' A.J. said.
"I was the brain and I had
asses. In high school I didn't want
be the brain, so I was this quiet
tle girl. Then I went to college, cut
y hair and I became outgoing." A.J.'s
ansformation changed everything.
ast year she was a senior at Univer-
ty of Florida, and someone suggested
e try out for the UF calendar. Out
the 13 finalists she was chosen to
ose for the cover.
Women appearing in college calen-
ars are often selected because they
ave something going for them aside
om their looks. In A.J.'s case the
ther" things are phenomenal. As a
istory major, she received a 3.96 GPA.
he was one of only seven students
hosen from her junior class of 9,000
s a Phi Beta Kappa, and she scored
the top 92nd percentile on the
SATs. Because of her looks, though,
.J. notices that people do not always
ake her seriously. Even when people
ear about her grades and law school,
he said, sometimes they are still
hinking, "Well, she's an airhead. She
oesn't have any common sense, but
he might be book smart."
A.J. comes from a long line of bril-
iant, ambitious individuals. One of her
andfathers was a Rhodes Scholar
ho went to Harvard Law School. Her
ther grandfather was a self-made
millionaire in advertising. Her brother,
s former member of a rock band, "has
>een declared a genius." A.J. hates the
dea of establishing a career based on
ber looks, and plans to follow in their
ambitious footsteps. "Doing something
based on your looks is ephemeral, it's
leeting" she said. "My mom always
raid, 'Use your brain.' "
-Kim Pryor
P assions
U OF MIAMI/STANFORD: In a dimly lit room, Chad and
Melody walk toward each other slowly. Melody removes
Chad's coat. Chad takes off Melody's robe, revealing a flimsy
negligee. They kiss passionately. But alas, poor Melody! It
is only a dream. To the audience, though, it looks more like
a scene from Dynasty than what it is, a student-produced
soap opera.
Passions, a daytime drama written, acted and directed
by students at the University of Miami, is one of the growing
number of campus-run soaps aired on university stations
and local cable networks. The show is set at Weston Uni-
versity, a fictitious campus in Anywhere, USA, where sex,
drugs and rock'n'roll are the main events. Passions is about
the lives and loves of college students; drama with a touch
of reality thrown in, or perhaps the other way around.
The students come from all areas of the university-no
acting experience required. Most of them, however, are
good looking. "You have to have people the audience likes
to look at;' said Shari Holbert, the "All-American girl."
"There are a lot of blondes, though."
Naturally blondes are ever present on the West Coast,
too, where Stanford University students have created Gen-
eral Dormitory, their equally steamy melodrama. "This soap
is for actors who have watched a soap on television and felt
that they could have done a much better job," director Jon
Louis said. "And they do."
So if you happen to pass a funeral or a drug deal on
campus, or a bevy of blondes, you will know you have not
entered the Twilight Zone, just a daytime dilemma.
-Lisa Gibbs
Stanforc' students snoot a scene rrom Generai ormitory.
Hc Kto buya jacet
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