The World of Stuff .com

¿Puedo hablar con Kevin?

On Friday night, my sister hosted a dinner for Lisa, Kevin, and Nathalie. It was a goodbye dinner of sorts. Kevin was to leave for Spain and France, and Lisa was going to Washington. Me, I’m not going anywhere in particular. It’s going to be another normal summer. My last normal summer, I guess.

After dinner, Kevin and I got to talking about colleges and things of that nature. I told him that I still didn’t have any idea where I wanted to go. I’ve had the University of Florida in mind because it’s arguably the best public school in the state, and due to costs I may be limited to public, in-state schools.

(Derail: Remember my geometry teacher, Miss Cale? The one who took me to the math competition? The one I played miniature golf with multiple times? The one who gave me advice about colleges? My sister and Lisa saw her working at Offerdahl’s this past week. Are you surprised to see a former teacher working at a restaurant? Neither am I. Anyway, Miss Cale was talking to my sister about all sorts of things. “What’s your brother’s name? Billy?” she asked. She also asked my sister about what college she wanted to go to, and she said maybe UF also, to which Miss Cale replied disappointedly, “You can do better than that.”)

Anyway, Kevin told me that the Princeton Review‘s web site has a service that recommends colleges based on your abilities, interests, and desires. I tried it out, and it gave me some results. Maybe I should look into the schools they’ve recommended. Maybe I should think about a major. That would probably be better. However, Kevin said that if I’m undecided, I should go to a very general university with a lot of good departments.

Kevin left yesterday. He gave us the phone number of his aunt and uncle’s home in Spain so we could call him with Skype. I went ahead and bought $10 in SkypeOut credit so we’d be able to talk to him for 7 hours rather than 8 minutes. I’ll probably have to remember the phone-related phrases I learned in Spanish III last year because his aunt and uncle don’t speak English. ¡Ay, caramba!

Gadgets, Now and Then: Part 1 and Part 2. It’s interesting to compare yesterday’s technology to that of today. We’ve really gone far.

Here’s an educational bit on filler words like “um” or “uh.” Basically, we say these little things to assert that it is our turn to speak.

Two years ago: “I think my friends and I are going to die of the heat out there.”