Everything’s waiting for you

My old roommate Andy moved out last month, and a new roommate took his place on Friday. Now I live with three or four people whom I don’t know very well (or at all), and it’s because I wanted to save money by living in a four-bedroom apartment.

I doubt many people live in this apartment complex for more than a couple of years. It’s designed for college students. Leases take effect in August and last 9 or 12 months. All utilities are included in the rent. For every few buildings (and there are many), there’s a “community assistant,” analogous to an RA in a college dorm. And the place has a mascot. It’s a giant squirrel. Named Dr. Speckles. I wish I were making this up.

Just as I felt restless after a year and a half in the dorms, now I feel restless after a year and a half here. I often think back to my travels in Europe and, more recently, Russia. I would stay in an apartment with one of the locals, and we would go out on a five-minute walk to a restaurant or a shop or something else interesting. It’s not like that here. I feel isolated. There’s only one bus route that goes by this place, and nothing is in walking distance (except for about three restaurants, but there’s no sidewalk on the way).

After thinking about it a bit, I’ve decided that I want to stay in Gainesville after graduation, which is only a few months away. Specifically, I want to live by myself in an apartment downtown. That way, I can be within walking distance of shopping, entertainment, and dining opportunities. There are a lot of restaurants and cafes I’ve never been to but would like to check out, and there are some great ones (like Dragonfly and The Top—wait, their official site is on Myspace? How ironic of them) that I would love to be closer to.

Plus, I’d be a short walk away from libraries, a park, a branch of my bank, and a post office. A post office! I could get my own PO box so stuff I order online wouldn’t be left at my doorstep for people to steal! (Wait… I’m checking this out now. PO boxes start at $60 per year in my area?? I’d have to think about that one some more. Now I’ve just Facebook-stalked the downtown apartment complex I’ve had my eye on, and it seems that they hold packages in the office. I’m in love.)

Living downtown, I would also be near the main bus station. In fact, this place I’m considering is located along 6 bus routes and is a short walk away from 6 more. Since I’m not planning on getting a car, this is hugely important to me. I would be just one bus ride away from places like the Oaks Mall, Butler Plaza, and Satchel’s Pizza. Wherever I end up working, I’d probably be able to get there pretty easily.

I’ve tried to imagine possible downsides as well. Noise might be a problem, as well as the presence of drunk and/or homeless people, but I’m not really sure. I should see if anyone I know lives in the area and talk to them about it (if anyone reading this has lived downtown, please feel free to chime in). The only things I would miss about my current place being close to are my sister (if she doesn’t also move) and Marco’s Pizza (which, sadly, doesn’t seem to deliver out that way).

So, I mentioned this downtown apartment complex that I’m interested in checking out. There are four different one-bedroom floor plans, a couple of which have patios or balconies, as the case may be. I would like another go at having a balcony. The one here at my current apartment is pretty crappy. There’s nothing to look at except for some trees, and the last person who lived here left a bunch of junk there that no one has ever gotten rid of. Nobody uses our balcony.

This downtown place looks like it’s not specifically for students. Some reviews I’ve read online say that there are plenty of grad students and families living there. That’s the kind of place I want to live in. The complex’s web site suggests that you don’t have to move in on a certain day in August and that you deal with utility companies directly, which is great because I want options. I don’t want cable, but I do want really fast Internet service and maybe a landline.

Oh, and then there’s the cost. If I live downtown, it looks like I’ll have to pay 2 or 3 times as much for rent as I do now. Since I’m a habitual saver (or, more accurately, a habitual non-spender [or, even more accurately, a non-habitual spender]), I don’t think this will be a problem as long as I get a job within a couple months of moving in.

So… thoughts?

Here’s why you shouldn’t play the lottery: Incredibly Depressing Mega Millions Lottery Simulator. Wikipedia tells me that Mega Millions is a game available in most states, but the general principle is the same as with any lottery: the more you play, the more money you’ll probably lose. (Via J-Walk Blog)

The second world

On the night of December 20, I had landed in St. Petersburg, Russia, after flying from Orlando via Frankfurt, Germany. Pulkovo International Airport was to be my first impression of Russia.

After stepping off the plane, I noticed a strong contrast right away: Orlando’s airport is huge and sprawling. Frankfurt’s is sleek and modern. Pulkovo smells like a bowling alley.

Okay, maybe I’m being a bit harsh, but the international terminal clearly hadn’t changed much since Soviet times. Everything was squarish and poorly lit. There were old terrazzo floors and wood trim around the windows. If it didn’t smell exactly like a bowling alley, it looked like it should.

I went through one of the passport control lanes, where an unsmiling woman accepted my paperwork and let me go on. After waiting at the sad little baggage claim—my flight seemed to be the only one that had arrived recently—I headed toward the exit, where Kate’s friend Volodya was waiting for me. We went outside to the parking lot—it was cold—and then into his car. Volodya gave me a Russian cell phone so I could stay in touch with Kate, and I gave him a map and the address of the place where I would be CouchSurfing for the next few days.

He started his car—a small Japanese sedan—and we set off. I probably didn’t blink as I sought to see as much as I could in this strange new country. Literally the first thing I saw was what appeared to be a Coca-Cola bottling plant. The second thing was a BP gas station entirely like the ones in the United States, right down to the Wild Bean Cafe convenience store. I wondered if my plane from Germany had flown in the wrong direction.

We drove down broad avenues. They had snow and ice on them, so I couldn’t tell if the lanes were marked, and I don’t think the other drivers on the road could tell either. As we approached the heart of St. Petersburg, we drove through the biggest roundabout I’ve ever seen. It had a colossal war memorial in the middle of it, with huge statues of soldiers and/or working people and the dates 1941-1945.

A lot of the buildings looked like they were about a hundred years old. They looked kind of like they were in that classic turn-of-the-century Paris style, if you know what I’m talking about. We passed by the apartment building where, according to Volodya, Kate had lived until recently. It looked like all of the others, but it seemed special to me. If she hadn’t broken her leg, I might have stayed with her there.

At last, we made it to a quiet street called Soviet Street, which had become one-way due to all the snow-covered cars parked on either side of it.

I’m given to understand that things in Russia are relatively expensive and that the postal service is unreliable. For those reasons, Kate had given me the money to buy her and her friends and family certain clothes and electronics. I gave Volodya a Kindle and a BlackBerry from my suitcase, and then we figured out where the entrance to my host’s apartment was. I thanked him for taking the time to chauffeur me around, and then I went ahead inside, hoping for a nice, warm bed to sleep in.

My arrival had taken my host by surprise. He was a young guy, a little younger than I. His English was very good, and he had traveled the US extensively. He said he had been asleep. Everyone had been asleep, he said. I didn’t know how many people he lived with, but I soon found out that he had accidentally overbooked his place. There were four other CouchSurfers there at the moment, and they were also asleep. Also living in the apartment were his brother, his mom, and his cat and dog.

I had been wanting to sleep, but we ended up chatting for a while about things like the differences between Russia and the US. He was also studying computer science and had a bunch of exams in the coming days. One of the other CouchSurfers, a German who was also about my age, came and joined in on the conversation. He had spent a year as an exchange student in Kansas and had traveled the US even more extensively than my host. These guys put me to shame, but at least I’ve been to Monaco.

Finally, we decided it was time to go to bed. I would be sleeping in the same room as my new German friend and the young Polish woman with which he was traveling. I had found out that they were students in Germany and they were just making a quick trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg. They were on the futon, and I got to sleep on a chair that folded out into a bed. I had never seen anything like it, which surprised my host. We Americans tend not to settle for less than a futon, I think. But I managed.

I woke up fairly early, according to my watch that I had bought for and only previously worn on my trip to Europe because I didn’t use my own cell phone there either except for one time when I needed to and I tried to use it and it didn’t work even though AT&T said it was supposed to. I lay there for a while, still not believing that I was in Russia. Fortunately, I was about to believe it.

Everyone else got off to a slow start that day too, so we decided to go out to lunch: my host, his brother, and we, the five CouchSurfers. I met the other two as we were getting ready to leave. They were a tanned Welshwoman who had that acerbic wit that is innate to all Britons and a tall Californian dude with long hair. They were at the end of a long journey. They had met each other while they were teaching English in South Korea, and they were slowly making their way westward from there, having gone through Siberia. They were hoping to make it to the young woman’s home in Wales by Christmas, which was only a few days away.

The seven of us walked a few blocks away to a cafe. We drank honey-sweetened beer, and I tried borscht at my host’s suggestion. I guess it’s made with beets, although I’d never had beets, so I didn’t know what they tasted like. It didn’t taste funky or anything. It was served with a dollop of sour cream that you’re supposed to mix into the soup. I thought that was kind of weird since I associate sour cream with Mexican food, but it worked well.

After lunch, we split up. Our host had to study, and the Welsh/Californian couple had to a bus station to get bus tickets. That left me with the German/Polish couple. We made our way to the nearest subway station, which was pretty close by. Unlike probably all of the subway systems I’ve been on, the St. Petersburg subway still accepts tokens. I got a few from my new German friend, and I promised to pay him back, but all I had were some large bills I had just taken out of an ATM.

The St. Petersburg subway is one of the deepest in the world. Some of the stations require a swift but several-minute-long escalator ride to get down to the platforms. I don’t think I had ever been in such an old escalator before. The steps weren’t the interlocking metal kind you see on every Otis and Montgomery in the USA. Instead, they were just steps, and I think they had wood on them also. They seemed a bit rickety, but nothing happened.

My host had mentioned that Russia was very much stuck in its old, inefficient Soviet ways. He gave the subway stations as an example. Instead of having a security camera at the foot of the elevator, they have an attendant who watches everyone. Sure enough, at the foot of that really long escalator was a woman in a small booth, just sitting there and watching. I guess there are advantages to having an actual person there, but it seems like an anachronism from a time when it was believed that everyone should be given a job, even if it was a really boring or useless one.

At this point in the story I haven’t even really seen or done anything yet, but I’ve tried to relate what my impressions were. Since I’m getting tired, I’m going to close out this post with another observation.

Since there was a process of “denazification” in Germany after World War II, it’s tempting for a young American like myself to assume that after the fall of our other great enemy of the twentieth century, some sort of “desovietification” must have happened. I didn’t have to be in Russia for very long, and you didn’t have to read very much about my visit, to become sure that this wasn’t the case. (and duh jordan the circumstaces were completely different germany was decimated and conquered by the allys after the biggest war man kind had ever seen but the soviet onion colapsed during peacetime mainly due to social and ecomonic forces from within!!!11)

Sure, St. Petersburg had changed its name back from Leningrad, but that was about it as far as I could tell. I noticed that the surrounding region was still called Leningrad, that there were still statues of Lenin around, and that there were plenty of streets and other public places called Soviet this or Revolution that. While Americans may look back on the Soviet Union with resentment or disgust, to Russians it seems like it was just a cool idea that sadly didn’t work out in the end. After all, it did make them the (second) most powerful nation on earth.

And now, today’s link: Awful Library Books. (Via The Presurfer)

Game changer

How often do you get to witness a life-changing event? A moment in which the fog lifts over someone’s future and a single path becomes clear?

My friend Andrea had been dying to catch up with me after my winter break in Russia, so on Monday, we met up and went out to an Italian place for dinner. As usual, she had a lot to talk about. Since I had last seen her, she had graduated and started applying to law schools. We talked about the daunting challenge that was her Vanderbilt application as well as some lighter stuff like possible romantic interests.

We’d been getting into the habit of renting movies and watching them together (well, actually, she’s the one who rents them), so after dinner, we settled on Hot Tub Time Machine and went to her place to watch it. If you haven’t seen it (which is perfectly all right), it’s about some friends who get sent back in time and have to re-live a wild weekend that determines the course of the rest of their lives. They can’t decide whether to re-create events as they originally happened or to take a different direction in the hope of giving themselves a better future.

Andrea was sitting on the couch with her laptop and surfing the Internet, which is what she does when she thinks the movie we’re watching is boring. But suddenly, she stood up. She started making noises. I had no idea what was going on.

Finally, she spoke. She had gotten an e-mail from George Washington University Law School. She had been accepted. And they were offering her a full-tuition scholarship.

She asked me to read the e-mail back to her just to make sure it was real. Once she was convinced that it wasn’t a prank, she called her parents and other family members, beaming, to share the good news.

Andrea had wanted to live and work in Washington, DC, and now, she was all set to go to a prestigious law school in the heart of our nation’s capital for free. Only a few hours earlier, we had been talking about what might happen if she got accepted to this or that law school. It turned out that her acceptance e-mail had been sent earlier that day. Unbeknownst to us, her fate had already been decided. And we couldn’t have been happier about it.

By the way, we finished watching Hot Tub Time Machine. Spoiler alert: One of the guys decides not to go back to the present day in the time machine. Instead, he stays behind in the past, re-lives his life, and becomes rich.

And now, something a little lighter: foods with misspelled names. (Via waxy.org)

Back in the USSR

I’ve been eager to write. The people want to know. Now, you shall hear of my magnificent voyage to the exotic land of Russia and the unusual circumstances surrounding my late return to this world… The World of Stuff.

Or whatever.

I guess the best way to start this story is to explain why I was going in the first place. I met Kate (in Russian, Ekaterina or Katya) while I was in Europe in ’09. Since then, she’s visited me not once but twice. In November, she broke her leg, and then she went to recuperate at her parents’, so I decided to visit her there.

I got my plane tickets and visa through a travel agent (AAA is also a travel agency, apparently). She ended up applying for the visa through CIBT, which is what I was going to do anyway. So I could have done everything myself, and maybe I should have, but it was good to talk to an expert since I had no experience applying for a visa. That is how I rationalize it.

So. I got the visa, no problems (thanks, Margaret!), and I had my tickets. I would fly from Orlando to St. Petersburg, with a layover in Frankfurt, Germany.

Sunday, December 19. My parents dropped me off at Orlando International Airport, which I was starting to get pretty familiar with by now. The check-in line was long, but I didn’t think I would be there for more than half an hour. Or an hour. Or two hours. Boys and girls, I stood there for three hours. The flight was delayed due to snowstorms in Europe and a bunch of people had to rebook their next flights, which was evidently like pulling teeth considering how long it took (that metaphor doesn’t quite work; bear with me).

I wasn’t quite sure whether my flight from FRA to LED (St. Petersburg, formerly Leningrad) would have to be rebooked, and I stood around for a while in indecision (so yes, part of the three hours was my fault). A guy and a girl about my age said I should stand in the rebooking line to find out just what I would have to do. Finally, I did. I was able to commiserate with them a bit as the people in front of me in line were taking FOREVER.

Eventually, it was my turn, and I was told that I should reschedule my second flight if I didn’t want to have to run for it. So I instead of arriving in St. Petersburg in the afternoon, I would arrive at night. Kind of threw a wrench into my plans, but there are few things I want to do less than run through an airport trying to catch an airplane (burn myself alive, hug a bear with chainsaw arms, watch TLC).

All that standing around had made me ferociously hungry, so when I was done, I thanked the guy and girl and went off to get some food. Next, I went through airport security, and I did not get selected for the naked body scanner, so I didn’t get groped either. Yay. Once I was at the gate, I had some time to write a blog post (so yeah, I’ve written about some of this stuff already), and then it was finally time to board.

On the plane, I found myself sitting next to the young guy and girl whom I had talked with earlier. Their names were Aaron and Rachel. They looked like a couple of people I used to know from my church youth group. Aaron was olive-skinned and wore glasses above a prominent nose. Rachel had fair skin, twinkling eyes, and an impossibly big smile. I told them about my travel plans, and they said they were going to India to meet some of Aaron’s family.

Most of the time during the flight, I just sat there and didn’t do anything. I can’t sleep sitting upright (or semi-upright, as in a reclined airplane seat), and for some reason I tend avoid to making myself as comfortable as possible on planes, trains, and automobiles. Something in me says it’s not worth the trouble to try to sleep, or to try to listen to whatever music they have playing, or to try to watch the movie.

Finally, we landed in Frankfurt, Germany. I was in Europe again, just like that. It was the morning or the afternoon or something. I didn’t really know.

Frankfurt’s airport is vast and has all the sleek modernness one has come to expect in the reunited Germany. I didn’t want to waste too much time looking around, though. Aaron, Rachel, and I followed the signs for connecting flights, and we were led to an area where all of the terminals could be reached. We had to go in different directions, so I wished them the best, and we parted ways.

I found my gate, and I had lots of time (the other people there were waiting for an earlier flight), so I got out my netbook and found free Wi-Fi. I couldn’t find a place to plug in, though, so I eventually switched to reading a book.

“English major?” asked the woman sitting next to me as I read Hamlet.

“Actually, computer science,” I said. “I just like Hamlet.”

She said she had recognized me from the flight from Orlando. We talked for a while. She said she couldn’t sleep on the plane either. She said that she had taken a computer programming class when she went to the University of Central Florida in Orlando. She was an accountant.

I’d taken an accounting class, I said, but I had already forgotten… which was it…?

“Debits on the left, credits on the right,” she said. (Actually, I still don’t remember, so maybe it was the other way around.)

She was taking a leave of absence to visit her family in Morocco. I let her use my laptop so she could check her Facebook, but it was taking so long to let her log in with all the you-are-logging-in-from-an-unfamiliar-location stuff that I had to leave before she could actually log in. As I was shutting down my netbook, she proposed that we add each other as friends on Facebook, so we wrote our names down for each other on pieces of newspaper that a guy sitting next to her graciously provided. We wished each other good luck, and I entered the gate.

It was dark now, but I could see snow falling outside. I had seen snow before, but not snowfall. It was mesmerizing. But before long, it was time to go. We actually had to go outside and take a bus to the tarmac, where our plane was waiting for us. I thought they didn’t do that anymore, but I guess they do when there are too many planes and not enough gates.

After a pleasantly brief flight of only three hours (but with a meal!), dimly lit highways came into view from the window. Soon, the plane made contact with the ground, and a disturbingly large number of people applauded. I had only heard of people doing that at precarious airports and/or on dilapidated airplanes, and I was fairly sure a Lufthansa Airbus jet and the international airport in a major world city would be pretty top-notch.

As the plane was being taxied, I looked around to see what I could see. I could hardly believe it myself. There I was in the land of Kate.

Here’s something I missed while I was gone: posting links. This is a good one that will give you some things to think about this New Year. (Via waxy.org)

2010: The Year in Review

And now, it’s time for what is probably my favorite World of Stuff tradition, the Year in Review. (Actually, I don’t think I have any other traditions.)

And what a year it’s been. Kate came all the way from Russia to visit me—twice—and I’m with her in the land of bears and vodka now. My friend Natasha came from Canada to visit me too. And my family moved to a new home far, far away… but closer to where I’m studying.

Yet 2010 didn’t just consist of big events; there were plenty of little things I thought were worth writing about too. So, without further ado, here are (most of) the most notable things that happened in my life this year.

• January 1 – I ring in the new year with my high-school friend Michelle.
• January 2 – I attend the wedding of my friends Yamilee and Austin.
• January 8-20 – Kate comes from Russia to visit me in Gainesville and then South Florida. Detailed in five parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
• January 31 – My longtime schoolmate Misha dies.
• February 6 – I visit Miami with my sister and our friend Kevin the day before the Super Bowl is to be held there.
• February 12-14 – I see our nation’s capital (and snow!) for the first time as I attend Free Culture Conference 2010 with my friends from Florida Free Culture.
• February 24 – I have a letter published in a student newspaper.
• February 27 – I help table for Get Carded at a small-town carnival-type event.
• March 4 – After volunteering at Florida Free Culture’s Free Your PC event, I’m shown in a photo on the university’s news site.
• March 7 – I receive a (very) late Christmas gift in the mail from my friend Natasha in Canada.
• March 8 – I go in for a routine eye exam to find out that my eyesight has improved.
• March 9 – I find out that the school I went to for nine years is closing for good.
• April 1 – I volunteer at Get Carded’s annual Lifeapalooza concert.
• April 3 – Florida Free Culture holds a Linux installfest on campus.
• April 6 – To celebrate The World of Stuff’s seventh birthday (and to jump onto the bandwagon), I join Twitter.
• April 6 – I attend a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza on campus.
• April 15 – I get a new camera.
• April 21 – I attend an interfaith forum on campus.
• May 6 – I spend a fun day with my friend Nick on his 21st birthday.
• May 10-12 – My roommate Andy’s friend Scott pays a visit to our apartment.
• May 12 – I start to battle fleas in my bedroom.
• May 29-June 1 – Andy and I attend Esperanto-USA’s annual conference in Bethesda, Maryland, and after a leisurely trip home, I barely make it to my first class of the week.
• June 20-27 – My friend Natasha visits me for the first time. (She later guest-blogged her side of the story.)
• July 4 – I go with my parents to a house that they’ve made an offer for. The next day, the offer is accepted.
• July 10 – I go to Miami to see my friends participate in the Red Bull Flugtag.
• July 12 – I celebrate my friend Andrea‘s 21st birthday with her family and friends.
• July 13 – After an exam, I have dinner with Andy and Andrea to celebrate my 21st birthday.
• July 29 – My family moves out of the house where we’d lived since I was 8.
• August 7-20 – Kate visits me in Gainesville, and we go to St. Augustine, Gainesville again, Key West, and Miami. Extremely detailed account in 10 parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
• September 8 – The newspaper publishes another one of my letters.
• September 9 – I attend an internship swap meet to find out about local businesses offering internships.
• September 11 – I go to my first football game since my freshman year, a 38-14 victory over South Florida.
• September 25 – Andrea and I go to another football game, a 48-14 blowout of Kentucky.
• September 28-October 3 – I stay at my parents’ to battle what turns out to be mono.
• October 8 – Andrea and I see Bob Dylan perform a concert on campus.
• October 9 – Andrea and I witness the football team’s heartbreaking loss to LSU at home.
• November 2 – For my ethics class, I participate in a debate about whether file-sharing is the same as stealing.
• November 6 – I see my co-worker dance in a Diwali show on campus.
• November 10-11 – Andy and I spend Veterans Day at my parents’ house.
• November 20 – I go to my last football game as a student.
• December 12 – I buy furnishings for the apartment to replace the stuff Andy will take with him when he moves out.
• December 14 – I make a sneak preview of the next site design available.
• December 16 – Andy, my roommate of more than a year, moves out.
• December 17 – I celebrate Christmas early with my family.
• December 19 – After facing delays at the airport, I leave for Russia, where I am right now.

Next year is set to be the most important yet in my life. In 2011, I will earn my degree and (hopefully) get a full-time job. The transition from non-adult to adult will (theoretically) be complete.

And you can witness it here.

Have yourself an early little Christmas

I went to my parents’ on Friday night, and we celebrated Christmas early since I’m going to be in Russia for the holiday. We had a big fancy dinner and everything. Oh yeah, and presents. I got more warm clothes.

So here I am, once again blogging at Orlando International Airport. The snowstorms in Europe have delayed my flight by a couple of hours, causing me to have to take a later flight to St. Petersburg. Hopefully everything will work out okay. At least I’m not like the sad people at the gate next to us, whose flight to London is delayed ten hours.

Just as my last international flight from this airport (to London, as a matter of fact) was filled with British families going home from Disney World, so this flight to Germany is filled with Germans going home from Disney World. Well, not all of them are. Some people are catching a flight from Germany to India. Poor them; I was behind them in line at the check-in counter, and because the flight was delayed they would miss their flight to India, and they didn’t have the papers to be able to stay. Not sure what happened to them.

Incidentally, I stood in that line for three hours. Much of that time I was waiting to rebook the flight to St. Petersburg.

Also, I’m happy to report that I didn’t have to go through the evil naked body scanner or get groped. Others weren’t so lucky. I heard a TSA agent say “I need a female over here,” and saw a girl younger than me get invasively patted down.

As I said, hopefully the rest of my journey will go smoothly. I think things will work out.

Senior Day

I went to Saturday’s football game since I had a ticket that no one wanted to buy. Well, that wasn’t the only reason. It was Senior Day, the last home game of the year, when the seniors on the team are honored for all the effort they’ve put forth over the past four (or more, or fewer) years.

It was also my Senior Day, so to speak, since I’m a senior too. By the time the next home game rolls around, it’ll be next September, and I will have graduated. Never again will I sit in the student section at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, better known as the Swamp. I figured I should take in the gameday atmosphere for what could be the last time in a long time… or ever.

My seat was only a few rows behind the famous “Work ‘Em Silly, Gators” sign that the same guy tapes to the same wall at every game. It’s such a fixture that if you play a game at the Swamp in NCAA Football 08, you’ll see it there too. I know that because my roommate from freshman year played the game a lot.

After the Gators worked Appalachian State silly, I tried to take a picture of the sign as someone (presumably its caretaker) was starting to remove the tape. Suddenly, a girl a few rows below us asked him to stop for a minute so she could take a picture of herself in front of it. I was able to get some pictures too.

I can’t believe that I’ve gone to my last football game as a student. I know that I’m going to be graduating in the spring, but I’m having a hard time actually realizing it. It’s just hard to imagine what my post-collegiate life will be like, I guess. I’ve gotten used to college, and soon, everything is going to change.

Here’s a six-minute cartoon about what Mormons believe (or believed). There’s lots of polygamy and racism. The description of the video contains citations for everything.

Memorable

Yesterday I was at Turlington Plaza on campus, signing some petition, when one of the guys behind the table said he recognized me. He said he’d taken a class with me, a biology class a few years ago, and pointed in the general direction of the building where the class met. I didn’t recognize him at all, but he had to be right. I’ve only taken one biology class; it was BSC 2008 in Spring 2008. I was dumbfounded: How could anyone have remembered me, especially after all this time?

“I remember everyone I’ve ever had a class with,” he said.

Psh. I sure don’t. Even though our class wasn’t very large (or not many people showed up every day, I can’t remember which), I only remember two of my classmates because they were, well, memorable. One was a big guy who, with his Southern accent and ever-present baseball cap, would contribute to class discussions by mentioning something vaguely relevant about his family’s fish-farming operation. The other was a olive-skinned, short-haired brunette who would smile at me whenever our eyes met in class. She looked a few years older than me, so I feel like she should have graduated by now, but I swear I saw her pass by me on her bike a few months ago, and I think she even said hi.

That’s not what this post is about.

Today, I was eating lunch outside the library when a guy sitting nearby struck up a conversation with me. Using my name.

He said he remembered my name and face from this web site, which he had found while looking for information on how to connect to popular IRC servers from the dorms. (I used to have a small collection of information on the subject, but I took it offline because I thought no one cared. I was wrong!) He even remembered the URL, which he proved by showing me my home page on his iPad.

We started talking about my site, blogging, computers, clubs, and classes. We seemed to get along well. All the while, I was amazed. Sure, this kind of thing has happened before, but it still knocks my socks off. I’ve always dreamed of being a blogging celebrity, or blogebrity, and if a few people on this campus of 50,000 students know who I am because of this site, then who knows how many others recognize me but don’t bother to tell me?

And why does this happen? I guess I’m just a memorable-looking guy with a memorable name and a memorable web site that also has a memorable name. Like Southern Fish Guy and the girl I never talked to, I am memorable in my own way. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense.

Apparently it’s pretty common for college students to cheat by ordering custom-written essays on the Internet. One writer in the biz pseudonymously spills the beans about his shady profession, with details changed to protect the guilty.

One-day weekend

Veterans Day was on Thursday, so we had a one-day weekend. My roommate Andy went with me to visit my parents, and in a little over 24 hours, Andy and I watched all of the Back to the Future movies and most of the first Harry Potter movie. And we still had time to take a walk around the grounds (yes, we have grounds now) and do some homework. And eat. It was pretty intense. And going back to school and work the next day was awful.

Here are a couple of Ask Jordon questions from Kate:

According to your article, you don’t remember QWERTY. How did you type on my netbook then? Do you use the standard or the left-handed Dvorak?

I wrote that I’d forgotten QWERTY after learning Dvorak. I learned QWERTY again.

Every Russian man 18 years old or older must serve in the army for one year. The conditions are poor and there is a risk of mockeries, hazing and even death. What would you do if you were a Russian boy? (You can Google about current situation.)

Like most young American men, I’ve thought a bit about how I might feel if I were drafted into the US Army, but fortunately, there hasn’t been a draft in a long time. I can’t even imagine how I’d feel about compulsory service, but without the element of surprise in play, at least I might be mentally prepared. If you’re talking about deserting, I don’t think I’d do it. If an army is mad at you, bad things can happen. One year of hell doesn’t sound that bad compared to the risk of a much greater penalty.

Want airport security screeners to see you naked? No? Wednesday, November 24, is National Opt-Out Day. Of course, you can (still) choose not to go through the naked body scanner whenever you fly, but people have promoted opting out on a busy travel day to get their point across. I should point out that the alternative—getting groped—isn’t much more pleasant. The terrorists have won. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Diwali

Recently, one of my co-workers invited me to a Diwali show she was going to be dancing in. For background information, I shall now quote Wikipedia:

Deepavali (also spelled Devali in certain regions) or Diwali, popularly known as the festival of lights, is an important five-day festival in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, occurring between mid-October and mid-November. For Hindus, Diwali is the most important festival of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes. Deepavali is an official holiday in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore, and Fiji.

Clearly, this is a big thing to many people. I had heard of it, and I was pretty sure there was an episode of The Office about it, but I really didn’t know anything about it. My co-worker, who is Indian, said they celebrate it like we celebrate Christmas here: with lights and gift-giving.

She had also invited one of our other co-workers and our boss to the show, but they couldn’t make it. So I was the only one to whom she gave a ticket stamped “VIP” at work on Friday. That was pretty cool since I had never been a VIP anywhere before.

The show was held at the performing arts center on campus last night. I got to sit in one of the front rows since I was a VIP and all. The show was a huge thing. It was about three hours long and had about 150 people in it. That sounds like an exaggeration, but it’s not. There are lots of Indian students at UF, although there were a few non-Indians, and possibly non-students, in the show. Most of the audience was Indian as well.

The show, which opened with the Indian and American national anthems, consisted mainly of musical numbers and dance routines, each with varying mixes of traditional and contemporary Indian-ness, performed by different groups of students. My co-worker appeared early on and did a great job on her dance routine. The theme of the night was Bollywood, and a series of skits interspersed throughout the program followed a couple of time-traveling Gators as they revisited Bollywood classics through the ages. Although these and other cultural references were lost on me, I could appreciate it all.

The show was so long that there was an intermission. (Well, that made it seem really long since even epic-length movies tend not to have intermissions anymore. I wonder why, anyway. After all, movies have been getting longer and our attention spans have been getting shorter, but… no more intermissions?) A local rapper opened the second half of the program with a couple of raps wishing everyone a happy Diwali. The final act of the show consisted of a dance troupe that you could tell spent a lot of time practicing just this very sort of thing. They were awesome.

I was grateful to my co-worker, who came out from backstage to talk to me during the intermission and after the show, for inviting me. Not only did I learn a thing or two about Indian culture, but I also had a good time. Awww.

From the BBC: How Britain Said Farewell to Its Empire.