STUDENTS BACK, 'EXCITED' FALL SEMESTER BEGINS AT CSUN.

Byline: Erik Nelson Staff Writer

To get acquainted with his students Monday, CSUN world music professor Ric Alviso had them write their names and addresses on a piece of paper, along with a single word describing themselves on the first day of class.

``I've been getting a lot of `tired,' `sleepy,' `stressed' and `excited,' '' said Alviso as he sat in an office cluttered with flutes and percussion instruments from several continents. Alviso leafed through other papers with the words ``lost and confused,'' ``exhausted,'' and simply, ``late.''

So it was with a few of the 28,000 students enrolled or expected to enroll for this fall's semester - the largest enrollment since the 1994 Northridge Earthquake devastated the campus.

Until the reconstruction of all major buildings at California State University, Northridge, is finished in March, reminders of the earthquake will continue to dominate the campus landscape. Chain-link fences still block construction sites, and temporary classrooms and office trailers still occupy expanses of parking lots, fields and lawns.

Six years of construction meant six years of parking shortages, but many upper class students have learned ways to cope, leaving the parking woes to the freshmen.

``On Nordhoff today, between Darby and Lindley, it was gridlocked with people trying to turn onto Darby to get to Parking Lots A and B,'' said Danny Weisberg of Northridge, a 32-year-old studying for his master's degree in physical therapy. ``As I was riding by on my bike, I was thinking . . . this whole first week is rough on all of the freshmen.''

But there were plenty of diversions to cheer even the frustrated commuters. There was a portable rock climbing cliff set up on the Sierra Quad to help relieve stress and promote classes in backpacking, rock climbing and mountaineering. There was an open-air market where students could buy clothing, shoes or cell phones, open a credit union account and sign up for campus organizations.

And there was Elvis and Marilyn Monroe and Cher, or at least people made up to resemble them, walking around the Student Union promoting Monday Casino Night, the first of the Welcome Back Week events.

George Meier, a 20-year-old junior radio, television and film major, created his own diversion by doing tricks on a borrowed chrome scooter in the Student Union courtyard.

``It's better than summer,'' Meier said of going back to classes, ``because all I did was work.''

His solution to the parking problem?

``I walk to school,'' said Meir, who sported a gray T-shirt saying ``The World is Yours,'' and displaying the likeness of Al Pacino playing ``Scarface.''

At the Matador Bookstore, behind a high, curving glass wall, Tom Spoulanger, a 28-year-old psychology major, checked his e-mail and caught up on his fantasy football league draft statistics on one of six new I-Mac computers in the nation's first cyber-cafe and Krispy Kreme doughnut shop.

He said he enjoyed the new cafe, which also offers 14 places to plug laptops into the campus Internet provider network.

On the other side of the glass, students waited for nearly an hour in checkout lines, but Spoulanger had no intention of buying his $300 worth of used textbooks that way.

``I wait until late at night. I find that's a lot easier.''

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2 photos

Photo: (1) Elvis impersonator Steve Moss, 33, mingles with CSUN students Monday, while promoting Welcome Back Week's Casino Night.

Junior RTVF major George Meier, 20, entertains friends with scooter tricks during their lunch break Monday at CSUN.

(2 -- ran in Glen/Bur only) Junior RTVF major George Meier, 20, entertains friends Monday with scooter tricks druing their lunchbreak Monday at CSUN. Tina Burch/Staff Photographer