Yo dawg, we heard you like interest so we put interest on your interest so you can get money while you get money

I’m taking a finance class, and it’s been reasonably interesting so far. The professor has told us young persons how important it is to save for our retirement: we’re not likely to have Social Security or a pension to help us out. He said we should start investing in the stock market. If the average annual return on stocks is 10% (which supposedly it is), and you invest $1,000 per year for 40 years, you should end up with something like $487,851.81. A penny saved is a dollar earned.

I’ve always thought of the stock market as something that would do me more harm than good if I tried to mess with it. Several times in school, when I was too young to care about these things, we would have to invest imaginary money in real stocks, and whoever had the most imaginary money at the end would win. I lost an incredible amount of imaginary money in these things. I just didn’t get it, and I’m still not sure that I do.

Now that my finance class has taught me a little more about investing, I’d be interested in putting my money in stocks if only I could wade through all the acronyms and jargon and figure out how to get started. Two of my professors now have recommended Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street in class, so that might be a good place to start. Or maybe I need Investing for College Students Who Know Essentially Nothing About These Things and Just Want Straight Answers.

I don’t doubt that a lot of you readers have investments and know your stuff. What do you recommend for me?

For today’s cool link of the day, I give you Lemonade and Other Things, a new blog by my friend Andrea. She’s already written a lot of posts on various subjects, and I’ve found them pretty interesting. Let’s hope she keeps up the good work.

O Natasha

When I wrote my last post, my friend Natasha was halfway through her visit. Here’s how the rest of the week went.

On Wednesday night, Natasha and I joined my sister and her friend Jennifer for dinner at Sushi Yama, a Japanese restaurant in Boca Raton. A good time and sushi were had by all. After that, we went home, and my sister’s friend Nathalie joined us to hang out. We decided to go and hang out with our friend Mike in the neighborhood for a while.

The next day was a slow one. After hanging around at home for most of the day, Natasha and I made it out to the Coral Square Mall so we could hit up Build-A-Bear Workshop and make a stuffed animal as a souvenir for her nephew. She had seen on their web site that there were alligators and Florida Gators football uniforms available, but at this particular store they didn’t have them. She chose the just-as-Floridian Florida panther wearing a Gators hat and t-shirt. She has good taste.

After milling around a bit at the mall, we went back home to have a homemade dinner of eggplant parmesan with my family and my sister’s friend Kelli. Later, Natasha and I watched sixth Harry Potter movie, which I hadn’t seen; it came out while I was in Europe last year.

Friday was a big day. Natasha and I went to the Deerfield Beach train station, as seen in one of her favorite movies. From there, we took the Tri-Rail and the Metrorail to Miami. Even though we started early, it was already getting to be lunchtime when we got there, so we had lunch at a smoothie place. Next we went to the Bayside shopping center in Bayfront Park, where my sister and our friend Kevin met up with us.

Andy met up with us there as well, and he went with Natasha and me to the Miami Seaquarium. It was a common destination for field trips when I was a kid, and I figured it would be a great way to show Natasha some of the wildlife all in one place. I hadn’t been there in ages, and I forgot how small the place was. But still, there was enough to do. We saw crocodiles, manatees, parrots, sea lions, dolphins, a killer whale, and more. Natasha loved it.

Next, we decided to have an early dinner, so we went to Little Havana and ate at a Cuban restaurant called La Carreta. Andy was pleased because he got to practice his Spanish. They got my order completely wrong, which led me to believe that they didn’t know much English. The food was good, though. After that, we met up with Kevin and my sister again and drove to Miami Beach, where we checked out the Lincoln Road Mall. Once it was dark, we walked over to the beach to check it out.

As we were leaving Miami Beach, we got an invitation from our friend Mike to hang out with him and our friend Nick, so once we made it back north, we hung out for a while with them and then got home pretty late.

Natasha still hadn’t been to the beach during the day, so on Saturday—her last full day—she and I went to Deerfield Beach. It was extremely hot, even for me, so we were done pretty quickly. Still, I’m glad she got to experience it. After burning at the beach, we cooled off in the pool at home. We spent the rest of the day getting ready to have a semi-fancy dinner at P.F. Chang’s in Boca Raton for Natasha’s last night in Florida. Kevin, Nathalie, Andy, and my sister joined Natasha and me there.

After dinner, we hung around for a while, wondering what to do. Eventually, we decided that it was late and that we should just go our separate ways. For Natasha, my sister, and me, that meant going back to the house, where we took another dip in the pool before going to bed.

On Natasha’s last day, there wasn’t time to do much except have Sunday brunch with the family and take a few photos of all of us together. After that, my mom took Natasha and me to the airport. We hardly had any time to say our goodbyes, but I knew we didn’t need to say very much. Whatever she would have said, I knew I could feel it in here [pounds chest with fist].

The week Natasha spent with me was a very special one that I won’t soon forget. In real life, with her smile and quirks and turns of phrase, she was every bit as fantastic as the Natasha I had gotten to know online over the years. I probably do say it enough, and maybe even too much, but I really appreciate Natasha and consider her one of my best friends. I look forward to visiting her sometime soon.

Out and about

On Sunday, my mom drove me to the airport. I can’t remember the last time I had been so nervous. I was about to meet Natasha, my friend whom I’d met online and had known for almost four years. I knew we would get along well, as we always had, but I was still nervous. A good kind of nervous.

I stood around by the baggage claims, expecting to meet her there. But I could see her coming from far away; it was unmistakably her. She had always been an idea to me: words, pictures, the occasional sounds. But here she was: a real live person in 3-D.

When we stepped outside, the first thing she noticed was the heat. She had come from her hometown of Thunder Bay, Ontario, with a layover in Toronto. But once she took off her sweater, the heat was a little more bearable, and the car ride home was cool enough.

One of the first things we did when we got home was walk to the drug store and the grocery store to buy some postcards and stamps. It was a short walk there and back, but we needed to cool down after that, so we went in the pool. Kevin came over, and after we had homemade pizza for dinner, he, my sister, and I played the Beatles Monopoly game that Natasha had given me. Natasha’s not too much of a Monopoly player (Monopolist?) so she just watched. She was also really tired, so she went to bed early.

She was sleeping in my room, so I slept on the futon in my dad’s office. As I stared at the ceiling, I suddenly remembered the last time I had slept there: in 1997, when we had just moved in. Now that we’re about to move out, it brought back memories.

I woke up early on Monday. Natasha and Kristen slept in. My mom had the day off from work, so she could take us around and stuff. After a slow start to the day, Natasha and I went to the ritzy Town Center Mall in Boca Raton. Natasha had made a list of the stores she wanted to visit. She also bought a lot of stuff. I mean a lot. I can hardly stand going shopping with my sister, but I enjoyed the day out with Natasha. It was fun to spend time with her.

After having tacos for dinner at home, Kristen and I went to the beach with Natasha and our friend Nathalie. Natasha had wanted to see the Deerfield Beach pier at night, but we figured we could also go into the water for a bit. It was Natasha’s first time in the ocean, and she was excited. She also had to figure out how to deal with all the salt water getting into her eyes, a skill I take for granted. After that, we moseyed to the pier and stayed there for a little while, enjoying the view.

Next, we went to Mizner Park, a small, fancy shopping area in Boca Raton. It was late, so most everything was closed, but it was nice to hang out there. We went to the frozen yogurt place where Nathalie works, and she was able to score us some discounted frozen yogurt.

On Tuesday, we hung out around the house for a while. My friend Andy had come down from Gainesville, and in the late afternoon, he picked up Kristen, Natasha, and me, and we took Natasha on her inaugural visit to Taco Bell. We all love Taco Bell, so it felt like a rite of initiation or something. She liked it too.

Then we went to the IKEA way out by the Everglades. I had never been there, so I was amazed at how big it was. We took lots of pictures of ourselves with the cool rooms. This IKEA, by the way, had two restaurants. They also sold Swedish Fish, the candy. Pretty sure they’re not actually Swedish, but I’m sure lots of people would expect them to be there.

Next, we went to Fort Lauderdale and checked out Las Olas Boulevard. After checking out this cool fountain whose jets you can control by moving your hands, we had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, where we all practically exploded from each eating an entree and a piece of cheesecake. Seriously inadvisable. I would only have one or the other next time. We walked around a bit more, checking out the shops, but most of them were closed. It was still nice to walk around, though.

Today, my friend Nick took Natasha and me to Hooters for lunch. Every time I’m here, and only when I’m here, the guys take me there for lunch. Natasha had never been to a Hooters, and she didn’t seem to mind going even though I probably should. Our friend Mike joined us at the restaurant, and after having lunch there, Nick took Natasha and me back home, where we’ve been chillaxing since then. The adventures will continue soon.

If I had $100

In order to graduate with a computer science degree, I have to take a communication class of some kind. I figured it would be easiest to get it over with during the summer, but my options would be more limited. Actually, my only choice was Intro to Public Speaking.

I have done a bit of public speaking already. When I went to a Catholic school, they would make me do readings in church all the time. I would be given a photocopied passage, usually a letter from Paul to some guys. There were slashes inserted between every few words; that was where I was supposed to pause. And then there was a reminder to count to three or five or something between finishing the reading and saying “The Word of the Lord.” My parents say I was great at it, but I was just following the directions. I never knew what I was actually saying. Nobody told me what it meant.

I was also asked to give a speech at my graduation from that school and again at my high-school graduation. I happily obliged in both cases. (Public speaking is nice when you know what you’re talking about.) And in college, I’ve already had to take a technical writing class, and the one I picked involved a fair amount of speaking, so I thought I had already met the communication requirement. But nopers.

So, I took Intro to Public Speaking during the Summer A semester, meaning I had class Monday through Friday for six weeks. We gave speeches every week. For our first assignment, which wasn’t for a grade, we had to interview a fellow student and present them to the class. Next, we were going to do impromptu speeches, in which we would select a topic and take a few minutes to prepare a short speech. The teacher wanted us to get a lot of practice, so first we did some impromptu speeches that didn’t count. He made us pick topics from the news. Mine went terribly.

For my actual impromptu speech, the one that counted for a grade, we submitted quotations and then we would each have to pick one and offer our reaction to it. I mentioned that one already.

After that, we had to give a speech demonstrating a process. I learned quite a bit from other people’s speeches: how to make a cookie cake, how to give a headlock in jujitsu, how to save gas. I talked about how to write a song. I was going to play a sample from a song I had recorded, but the audio wasn’t working, so the teacher made me sing it. And you thought speaking to people was scary…

Our next assignment was to give a persuasive speech. We would have to persuade the class that a law should be changed. Most people talked about the hard-hitting, life-or-death, hot-button social issues, but I talked about why copyright terms, which are the longest they’ve ever been, should be shortened. I thought I did a pretty good job on that one. The teacher thought the class as a whole didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm, so for the last assignment, he made us do persuasive speeches again.

This time, he said he had $100, and we were supposed to try to convince the class how he should spend the money. Then we would have a vote, and the winner would have the $100 spent on their idea, and they would get an A in the class.

I skipped the first two days of speeches because I was studying for my other classes, and I wanted to be ready for my speech. I thought a lot about what I would want the $100 to go to; I have a lot of pet issues that no one cares about. But then I remembered organ donation awareness, so I tried to persuade the class that the $100 should go to the organ donation awareness group I volunteer with.

I didn’t win—the winning idea was to have a class dance party—but I was glad to get my speech over with. And now the class is done, and I’m home for a week. Yesterday I went to a wedding, and today I’m about to pick up my friend Natasha for the airport. Fun times ahead!

It seems there are always tour groups going around campus—year-round, rain or shine. I’ve wondered how the weather might affect people’s perceptions of my fair university, and I assumed that bad weather would show the school in an unflattering light. Apparently, research shows that the opposite is true.

Florida freezes over

I’ve known Natasha for a long time now. It started almost four years ago. She found this site from a web search and left a comment on one of my blog posts. We started exchanging MySpace messages (how quaint, I know), which soon turned into e-mails. That progressed to IMing, texting, and writing letters. We’ve even talked on the phone a few times. Needless to say, we’ve become good friends.

Almost from the very beginning, we wanted to meet in person. But we were 17 and 16, and we were in different countries. Natasha is from Northwestern Ontario, and I’m from Florida. Year after year, we talked about visiting each other, but something has always come up. I could have gone to visit her, but she said she would prefer to visit me in the land of palm trees and beaches and all that. She’s never seen the ocean.

This year, all of the pieces have finally fallen into place. I have no classes next week, so this weekend I’ll go home and Natasha will fly in from Canada. She’ll be spending the week with me and my family, and we’ll meet up with some of my friends and see some of the sights in the greater Miami area… including the beaches, of course. We’ve actually got a whole list, so we won’t have trouble finding things to do.

I’ve been having a pretty stressful week, but it makes me feel much better to know that the week I’ve been waiting for for four years is just around the corner!

Have a look at some advertisements from 1959 that were recently found during a renovation of a London Underground station. They’re pretty vintage-tastic, but they all look like they were designed by the same person. Do today’s ads all look the same? Maybe future generations will think so. (Via The Presurfer)

No direction home

South Florida is vast and crowded. For years and years, my parents have wanted to sell our house and move someplace quieter. A while back, for about a year, they had the house on the market, but no one bought it. They’ve spent a lot of time fixing things up and recently put it up for sale again. They gave me the news yesterday: there’s an official buyer. We have to move out by July 29.

Well, it’s more them, really. Since starting college, I’ve only spent about 20% of my time there. According to this year’s census, I don’t live there; I live here at my apartment in Gainesville. But I only intend to have this apartment for as long as I’m in college, and I’ve always considered my home in South Florida to be my permanent address. In my heart, I do live there, and I’ve already planned to go back at least a couple more times.

Since my parents have made their intentions known for so long, I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with the move. Still, I can’t help but feel a little sad that my permanent address will be no more.

We moved in on December 6, 1997. I was eight years old. We were only moving across town, and we were able to keep our phone number, but I was still pretty distraught. I had lived in our old house for my whole eight-year-old life, and it was everything I knew. My parents had taken my sister and me along on dozens or hundreds of “house hunting” trips. I remember seeing for the first time what would eventually be our new house. I remember seeing the old big-screen TV in the corner where we would later put our Christmas tree.

I remember us having a garage sale—the only garage sale I think we’ve ever had for as long as I’ve been alive. And I remember the last time I was in the old house, when it was completely empty. We had to get rid of our dog because our old house closed in October and we couldn’t move in to the new one till December, and we would be living in a condo in the meantime. Also, at the new house there wasn’t a fence around the backyard.

I’m going to miss that backyard. I was so excited to have a real pool, even though I take it for granted now. I remember jumping into it with my sister in February and then jumping right back out again. I remember my friends and I wandering around the backyard with our guitars, my sister supervising the photo shoot with a disposable camera I bought with some money I had somehow managed to scrounge up. I remember having birthday parties there. A pool party early on. Was that the one with pie fight? Well, whipped cream in pie tins. And later, the infamous birthday dance parties on the patio. I think we had them four years in a row.

I remember the band practices in the garage or sometimes in the living room, the Driveway-A-Thon, and our secret spot at a juncture of fences behind the house. I remember the lake across the street that’s not actually a lake but part of a canal. I remember getting pushed into the lake, and I remember getting other people to run into the lake. I remember playing video games with the neighbor with the two-story house, and my other neighbors’ mom leaving a pitcher of water on the front porch overnight to make it North Pole water.

I remember sitting at the old computer, my dad and I composing an e-mail to Geocities asking how to sign up for an account. I remember declaring my latest web site ready for the world on a Sunday. I remember being lighted by artificial light as I wrote a post for a camera. I remember the wall getting painted red and the computer moving to the opposite one.

Dishes broke. I dropped taco meat on the kitchen carpet. The tiles detached themselves from the living room floor; we moved out for a week. The house weathered more hurricanes than I can try to remember. Georges, Frances, Jeanne, Katrina, Wilma. My room was repainted. My sister’s room was repainted. More carpets were replaced. Our next dog made that necessary.

But there’s still a spot on the inside of the front door where I would place my greasy, pubescent nose as I tiptoed to look through the peephole. There are still lots of holes in my bedroom walls that my dad drilled so I could hang up random stuff. And there’s still the sad-looking concrete lawn flamingo with rebar legs that we found on moving in and that I for some reason find irresistibly charming.

I remember packing up and leaving for vacations and being thrilled to come back. I’ll miss the place.

The “someplace quieter” that my parents want to move to is the same general area I’m in now. But they still haven’t found the right house. In the meantime, they’ll be living with my grandmother in her house. And I’ll be changing my address for everything.

A fake movie trailer: Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. (Via waxy.org)

Another list: 7 Totally Awesome and Totally True Ways People Quit Their Jobs. (Via The Presurfer)

The Landa Kongreso: Monday and beyond

This is the final post in a three-part… blah blah blah, you don’t care.

On Monday morning, I attended the closing ceremony of the conference. Well, there wasn’t much ceremony; the term used in Esperanto means “solemn closing.” It wasn’t especially solemn either. It was mainly a series of closing remarks, capped off with a singing of “La Espero.”

The organizers of the convention presented some statistics, most notably that the attendance was over 100. The president of Esperanto-USA gave some details about the next national convention, which will be held at the University of California, Berkeley, in early June 2011, and the one after that, which will be held in north Texas in 2012.

I was the only college-age kid to attend the closing ceremony. Once that was over, I rejoined the others in the lobby. Andy, Darcy, and I got to talking about exciting it was to be with so many other young Esperantists and how to keep the energy going. For a while, Esperanto-USA had had an active youth branch called USEJ. We decided bring USEJ back to life by starting up an IRC channel where we could constantly chat with each other and by having regular voice chats online. We also decided to look into the possibility of having a national youth congress in South Florida in the winter.

I’ve come back energized, and I’ve come back with a goal. I want to take new Esperantists with me to Berkeley next year. That means Andy and I will have to work hard to attract new members to our club and help them learn Esperanto, but it’s a worthwhile challenge.

I didn’t actually go to DC at all during the trip, even on the drive to the train station. Yes, instead of flying back to Florida, we took the Auto Train with Andy’s dad and Andy’s dad’s car, which Andy is now using. It was actually pretty comfortable, and I even expected to sleep at one point. I don’t think I actually did; I should have known better. But the complementary dinner and breakfast were pretty good, and it was fun to see “America at see level” (Amtrak’s former or maybe current tagline).

We arrived in Sanford, Florida, on Tuesday morning, and we drove to Gainesville. As soon as we made it to UF, I raced into my public speaking class, which was already in progress. I was going to have to deliver an impromptu speech. We had each submitted a quotation, and then when it was our turn to give a speech, we had to pick one of them at random and and deliver a speech about our reaction to it.

For some reason, there weren’t as many quotes as there were people, and I was the last to go, so I was left with none. The teacher asked people to submit some more, so I had fresh pickin’s. I chose:

“We are not here merely to make a living, we are here to enrich the world.”
—Woodrow Wilson

Within three minutes, I explained a little bit about what Esperanto is all about and about the experience I had had with other Esperantists over the long weekend. I tied it all together by explaining the shared hope that Esperanto can help enrich the world. I got a strong round of applause, and people had more questions for me after the speech. I got a 98% on the assignment.

With Congress.org’s MegaVote, you can sign up for weekly e-mails with information on how your representatives are voting. Good idea! (Via HackCollege)

I had no idea Google allowed you to purchase advertising time on TV, but someone at Slate tried it out. (Via waxy.org)

You know what’s cool? Science. You know what’s cooler? Infographics that aren’t totally stupid and help you understand science. Here’s one that organizes popular health supplements by the amount of evidence for their effectiveness. (Via Lifehacker)

The Landa Kongreso: Sunday

This is the second post in a three-part series on my trip to the 58th annual National Congress of Esperanto-USA. Here’s the previous installment in case you missed it. And for Andy’s point of view on what happened the first day, read his post, “At the National Esperanto Convention (Part 1).”

On Sunday morning, Andy and I went with some of our cohorts to Caribou Coffee. I made sure to get back to the hotel in time to listen to a lecture by the eminent Esperantist Humphrey Tonkin, who talked about the need for Esperanto organizations to adapt to today’s Internet-based society. Next, there was supposed to be a video chat with participants at the Russian Esperantists’ Congress, which was going on in St. Petersburg at the same time. For whatever reason, they weren’t able to get that going, but I managed to text Kate, who was at the Russian convention.

At the same time in another room, Andy gave a presentation about the different types of sounds in Esperanto and their representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet. Even though his lecture wasn’t listed on the program, the room filled up. I was going back and forth, trying to see if they had gotten the video chat working yet. Andy didn’t mind because what he was saying wasn’t new to me. That’s the kind of stuff we talk about in the living room on Thursday nights.

Next, it was getting to be lunchtime, so a bunch of people went to Chipotle, also a short walk away from the hotel. After that, I attended lectures about Esperanto-USA’s website, how to lecture about Esperanto, and the World Esperanto Association’s relationship with the United Nations. Those were all okay, but I was really looking forward to Darcy’s talk about her experiences starting and running an Esperanto club at a university. I think her talk was better attended than most of the others. The main bits of advice that I took away were to emphasize to people that Esperanto is fun and to make all of the club meetings fun.

After that, there were some games going on. Some of us got wrapped up in a game that involved guessing words one letter at a time. That was fun, and it seemed like a good way to build vocabulary. (Maybe we can play it at our meetings next year.) While that was going on, the rest of the youths (and some of the semi-youths) decided to go to a nearby tapas bar called Jaleo, so Andy and I joined them. I think there were 18 of us in all, sitting at two long tables. I just ordered some gazpacho, which I hadn’t had since I had first tried it in Spain last year. Ah, the memories…

After our early (or seemingly early) dinner, we went back to the hotel, and I sat in on a lecture about the 6th World Congress of Esperanto, which was held in Washington, DC, in 1910. (Its 100th anniversary was one of the factors in the decision to hold the national convention in the DC area this year.) The lecturer mainly showed contemporary newspaper articles, which described the events of each day of the congress in detail. More people were aware of Esperanto back then.

Next, there was some entertainment, including a much-hyped visit from a mysterious guest. The mysterious guest turned out to be one of the guys from the conference in drag lipsynching to Esperanto translations of “Material Girl” and “Dancing Queen.” There were also more conventional performances of bluegrass and other folk-type music, mostly in Esperanto. I especially enjoyed a performance of “Here Comes the Sun” in Esperanto on the ukulele. In between performers, we watched Conlang, a humorous short film about a power struggle in a small club for lovers of constructed languages.

After that, it was pretty late, but I and the other young types decided to go out. Some of us wanted to go out for a bite, and some of us just wanted to go out for a bit. I was all for going to the diner that they had gone to the night before. Like everything else, it was a short walk away from the hotel. It was called the Tastee Diner, and it was definitely the dineriest diner I had ever been to. We had the same waitress, a young woman with a strong Russian accent, that they had been served by the night before. I got a patty melt and chili cheese fries, but it was a tough decision to make. I wanted everything.

Back at the hotel, I was able to sleep in a bed because some people had already left. I slept better than I had the night before, when I had slept on the floor.

Watch this really, really epic TV theme song medley. I’ve only seen a few of the shows, but I still thought it was well done. (Via waxy.org)

Some guy writes about why theatre was the most important class he ever took. (Via Lifehacker)

Graffiti that dares to be erased: “COME ON PAINT ME WHITE AGAIN.” This really reminds me of my friend Brian. Brian, if you’re reading this… sarcastic graffiti makes me think of you? (Via waxy.org)

The Landa Kongreso: Saturday

When I was in Europe, I spent quite some time at Esperanto events. But I had never been to one in my own country… till last weekend.

My Esperantist friend and roommate Andy has been away for the summer, but we met up at the Jacksonville airport on Saturday. I took a bus there; Andy flew from Fort Lauderdale. From Jacksonville we flew to Baltimore, where Andy’s dad met us and drove us to the site of Esperanto-USA‘s national convention, a hotel in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, DC.

Andy and I arrived during one of the excursions to Washington, so not a lot of people were around. We registered on-site (not much planning had gone into this trip) and hung around, waiting for people to come back. The person I most looked forward to seeing was Darcy Ross, who had started an Esperanto club at the University of Illinois around the same time that Andy and I started one at the University of Florida. I wanted to know the secret to her success; while our club had virtually no members, Darcy had brought some of her many club members to the convention for the second year in a row.

Fortunately for Andy, there was a piano in the hotel, so we spent a lot of time hanging around there as Andy played. Some other Esperantists who were milling around conversed with us. I had seen in the program that there was an “official” cafe that was giving a discount to convention participants, so Andy and I decided to check it out. It was a Caribou Coffee located a short walk down the street from the hotel. It seemed exactly like a Starbucks, except it was decorated more like a lodge and less like a generic coffee place.

A little while later, it was getting to be dinnertime. Andy and I decided not to go to the banquet, which would have cost us around $40 per plate. Instead, we went to dinner with Andy’s dad and his dad’s friends, who lived nearby and let us stay at their house. We ended up having dinner at a Lebanese restaurant that was a short distance away from the hotel. By the time we were ready to leave the restaurant, it was getting late, but Andy and I decided to go back to the hotel instead of going to the house where we had planned on staying.

At the hotel, we finally met the famous Darcy Ross, who was very surprised to see us there. (To be fair, I was surprised to see us there too, since we had decided to go less than two weeks before.) Darcy had her friends from her Esperanto club with her—we called them her sheep—and there were a few people from other universities as well. They all (including Andy) wanted to go out to a club, and I, having woken up very early that morning, didn’t. So they went out, and they let me sleep on the floor in one of their hotel rooms.

Stay tuned for the rest, because it gets more interesting.

One of those lists again: the Top 5 Unluckiest People Who Ever Lived. (Via The Presurfer)

This may be a repost, but I like it. Book-A-Minute is a collection of extremely condensed versions of classic books.

You know how you always hear about people who are in the hospital in critical condition or stable condition or something like that? They just expect you to know what each one means. Wikipedia explains the whole scale of medical states.