The "OC"
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3/14/2008
THE GOOD
Excellent climate, lots to do, good schools, outstanding urban planning and development, excellent medical care.
THE WEIRD
It is like living in Disneyland. No trash anywhere, everyone flosses their teeth and have nice smiles. Everyone drives the same cars BMW Audi, or Mercedes Benz (Silver with black leather). Many overacheivers, in my son's graduating high school class (Northwood, Class of 2004) three kids made a perfect SAT score of 1800. A materialistic and status concious culture, and it reflects in all aspects of life. Another weird fact, they drained and cleaned the artificial lake in our local regional park (Heritage). The lake is filled with recycled sewege water. Biologists took some of the dead fish and had their tissues tested for toxins. They found high levels of antidepressents (Zoloft and Prozac)
THE BAD
If you don't fit in and play the game, you are ostracized and looked down on. My daughter had an extremely bad time with mean girls in middle school. The public school system was helpless and quite frankly the administration was unsympathetic to our situation. We ended up sending her to a bording school in northern California. Lisa (daughter) is doing fine now and living in San Luis Obispo, where everything is more down to earth and people are diversified and real.
Jim | Irvine, CA