Early May, 1996. A stressful week. (#82)

February 6, 2021December 19, 2021 ~ Greg Dennison ~ 17 Comments

A few months before every Olympic Games, the Olympic torch is lit by the sun on Mount Olympus in Greece and brought across Greece and the country hosting the Games that year. In 1996, the upcoming Summer Olympics would be held in Atlanta, on the opposite side of the United States from Jeromeville. The torch would travel across the United States by way of a relay. Thousands of people would carry the torch for a short distance, then pass it to someone else, with crowds of onlookers watching as the torch made its way across their parts of the country.

On the day before the torch passed through Jeromeville, I sat alone at a table at the Memorial Union, eating a burrito and doing the crossword puzzle in the Daily Colt. I had work to do, I had a combinatorics midterm coming up in a few days, but I was not in the mood to do work, given everything on my mind. I had been looking for a house for next year, with no luck so far, and I was starting to worry about this. (This was before I talked to Shawn about looking for an apartment instead.)

I walked into combinatorics class about five minutes before it was scheduled to start; this was the last class before the midterm. I was a quarter ahead in math entering the University of Jeromeville, so I did not take freshman calculus in large lecture halls with people who were taking math on schedule. Because of that, this combinatorics class, with about eighty people, was the largest math class I had taken at UJ so far. I looked around the room and saw Andrea Briggs, who had been in a few classes with me before and lived in the dorm next to mine last year. She sat next to an open seat, so I walked up to it and asked, “May I sit here?”

“Sure,” Andrea replied.

“How are you?”

“I’m great!” she said. “Jay came to visit this weekend, and he proposed!” Andrea held up her left hand, with the third finger now bearing a diamond ring.

“Congratulations!” I said awkwardly. Was that the right thing to say in response to this? I was not sure. As far as I knew, she was the first of my friends to get engaged. This was a completely new experience to me.

“What about you?” she asked. “How are you?”

“My week hasn’t been nearly as exciting. I had a quiz in my other math class this morning.”

“Which class? How’d you do?”

“167, with Dr. Ionescu. I’m getting an A in that class, but I feel like I’m not learning anything. Most of what we’re doing is just review from 22A. And the entire grade is based on surprise quizzes every three or four classes, so there’s no reason to remember anything.”

“Yeah, that’s weird. But at least you’re getting an A.”

“Yeah.”

Gabby, the combinatorics professor, began lecturing about generating functions for recurrence relations, so I stopped talking and began taking notes. Dr. Gabrielle Thomas was my favorite math professor at UJ so far. She was fairly young, I would guess in her thirties; she spoke English clearly; and she told us to call her Gabby, which seemed refreshingly informal to me. That made her feel more like a human being, whom I could relate to, compared to many of my other professors.

I tried to focus on what Gabby was saying, because of the upcoming midterm. I still had not mastered recurrence relations, but I thought I would probably do fine once I took the time to study and practice the material. However, I had a hard time concentrating today. I kept wanting to sneak glances at Andrea’s left hand, not because of any particular curiosity about what her ring looked like, but because she had one in the first place. I was over Andrea as a possible love interest; I found out over a year ago that she had a boyfriend. But it just felt weird, and discouraging, that I was at the age when my friends would be getting married. Andrea would soon be committing herself to one man for life, probably starting a family with him after she finished school, and I had still never kissed a girl.

After class, as I headed back to the Memorial Union where my bicycle was parked, I saw Danielle Coronado and Claire Seaver from church sitting at a table talking. Danielle was one of the first friends I made at UJ; she lived down the hall from me in my dorm last year. “Hey,” I said as I approached them.

“Greg!” Danielle said, smiling and waving.

“Hey, Greg,” Claire said. “Have you started your project yet?”

“Kind of.”

“Which math class do you two have together?” Danielle asked me.

“Anthro 2,” I explained. “Not math.” Danielle’s assumption was warranted, however, because Claire was a music major with a minor in mathematics.

“That’s right, anthro,” Danielle said. “With that professor who did a class for the IHP last year.”

“Yes. Dick Small.” I still found that name hilarious, because of my extensive background in dirty jokes. “I’m going to observe and write about the IRC channel FriendlyChat,” I continued.

“Is that that thing where you talk to strangers on the computer?”

“Yeah. Internet Relay Chat. I was in FriendlyChat earlier today, and there’s some kind of complicated leadership structure with who gets to be a channel operator, and all these rules that they get mad at you for not knowing. And when I kept announcing that I was doing an anthro project, as the ethics of anthropology require, some of them got mad at me for spamming. So I’m off to a frustrating start.”

“Well, hopefully you’ll figure out a way to get your project done.”

“I hope so. I’m just stressed about a lot of things.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I want to go see the torch tomorrow, though,” I said.

“Oh yeah! When is that supposed to be?”

“It’ll be passing along Fifth Street between 1 and 2.”

“I have class,” Danielle said, feeling slightly disappointed. “But have fun!”

“I will! I’m going to head home now, but I’ll see you guys soon.”

“Bye, Greg,” Claire said.

“Bye,” Danielle added, waving.

I waved at the girls as I walked to my bicycle and went home. I was riding a little more slowly than usual. I felt weighed down by my upcoming midterm, the anthro project, looking for a house, and my fear of being left behind now that people I knew were getting married.

I had most of the next day free. After I finished my one class, I planned to stay on campus and get work done until around noon, eat lunch, then go find a place to watch the Olympic torch. I walked into the Memorial Union after class and looked for a table. I saw Sarah Winters, whom I knew both from the dorm last year and from Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, sitting by herself at a table, reading, with a notebook and textbook open. I walked to her table and asked, “May I sit here?”

“Yeah!” Sarah said. “How are you?”

“I’m stressed,” I said.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve been trying to find a house for us next year, I’ve looked at a bunch of places, and I haven’t heard anything back yet. And I have a big midterm for Math 145 tomorrow. And I’m frustrated in general with Applied Linear Algebra, Math 167. That class is a waste of time, and I’m not learning anything.” Sarah began writing something as I continued speaking. “And I just found out that someone I know, her boyfriend proposed. I’ve never even had a girlfriend, and now I have friends who are getting married.” As Sarah continued writing, I wondered if I was bothering her, if I should let her work on whatever she was doing. “And I have this big project for Anthro 2 that I need to work on, and what I wanted to do hasn’t been working out so far.” I stopped talking now, because Sarah was clearly busy with whatever she was working on. I got out my combinatorics textbook and began looking over the section that would be covered on the test tomorrow.

“This is for you,” Sarah said, as she placed the paper she had been writing on top of my textbook. I read what she wrote:

“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6

I looked up and saw Sarah looking at me with a peaceful, contented smile on her face. “Thank you,” I said, attempting a smile in return.

“Everything’s gonna be just fine,” Sarah said. “Really.”

“I know,” I said. “But–”

“You’ll be okay.”

I took a deep breath. “I’ll be okay.”

We sat there for the rest of the hour studying, occasionally making small talk. “What are you doing the rest of the day?” Sarah asked at one point.

“I’m done with classes for the day. But I’m gonna go see the torch.”

“Fun! I can’t. I’ll be in class during that time.”

I looked again at the note that Sarah wrote. God had a plan for me. My grades, my house for next year, my future wife, all of this was in God’s hands. Trust God. The second verse, from Proverbs, was a little bit familiar to me already, because there was a song we sang at Bible study sometimes based on that verse. I had made a decision that I was living my life for Jesus, and now it was time to trust him to make this all work out somehow.

Sarah left to go to class a bit later. As I continued studying combinatorics, I really did begin to feel better about tomorrow’s midterm. At noon, I got out the sandwich I had packed that morning, and when I finished that, I headed toward Fifth Street at the northern edge of campus. Crowds waiting to see the torch were already beginning to line the street. I found a spot next to an aged olive tree and leaned against the tree, waiting. I had my backpack with me, so I continued studying combinatorics while I waited for the torch to arrive.

After I had been waiting for about forty minutes, I saw police cars approaching slowly, stopping drivers and pedestrians from entering or crossing Fifth Street. This must be it. Behind the police cars were a number of official vehicles with US and Olympic flags; a truck from Coca-Cola, the event’s sponsor; and finally someone wearing running shorts holding the Olympic torch. I did not know if the torchbearer was someone famous or not.

I looked up at the torch in wonder. That flame was ignited on the other side of the world and brought all the way here, continuously burning. That felt kind of surreal. This was a symbol of one of the biggest athletic events on Earth. In two months, the world would be watching athletes from every inhabited continent competing for Olympic glory, and this same flame would burn over the shiny new stadium that Atlanta had just finished building for these Games. People cheered at the moment that the torchbearer passed in front of them, and I joined in as he passed me.

A few minutes after the torch passed, when the entire entourage had moved beyond where I was standing, I turned around to go back to the Memorial Union, where my bicycle was parked. “Excuse me?” a man asked me. He had a fancy camera on a strap around his neck and a small Coca-Cola logo embroidered on his shirt on his chest to his left.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Can I get a picture of you holding this?” The man handed me a full, unopened Coca-Cola plastic bottle.

I was confused. “Why me?” I asked.

“No reason. I’m just looking for people to photograph with Coke bottles, for our promotional materials.”

“Okay,” I said. I smiled at the camera, holding the drink up, as he clicked the shutter a few times.

“Thank you!” the photographer said. “You can keep the Coke.”

I walked back toward my bike as I drank my free Coca-Cola. To this day, I never saw my picture in any Coca-Cola advertisements, so I do not know if they ever ended up doing anything with the picture. But I got a free drink out of it.

When I got home that afternoon, I turned on the computer and connected to the campus Internet, listening to the whirs and clicks of the modem dialing the access number. I opened a text terminal and connected to Internet Relay Chat, then entered the FriendlyChat channel using my usual screen name, “gjd76.” About a minute after I joined, I copied and pasted the same message I copied and pasted every fifteen minutes while I was working on this: “I am working on a project for an anthropology class, making observations of the culture in this channel. I will not use your actual names or actual screen names.”

“gjd76, u might not wanna tell us that, people might act different if they know ur studying them,” one person typed.

“true, but my professor says it’s unethical not to tell people they’re being studied,” I replied.

“Let me know if I can answer any questions for you,” one of the channel operators said.

“i will,” I typed back. So far, this was going much better than yesterday; people were actually being helpful.

As I reached for my notebook in my backpack, I found the note that Sarah had written to me, with the Bible verses on it. I read it again. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Good advice. I took two push pins and attached Sarah’s note to the bulletin board above my desk. That way it could be a reminder for me while I was sitting here at the computer; I could look up and see those Scriptures.

I spent about an hour and a half in the FriendlyChat channel, and this time I was able to make much more meaningful observations and have more meaningful interactions with the people in the chat than I had yesterday. If I had a few more days like this, I would have plenty of material to use to write my paper. I also felt much better about my midterm for combinatorics, after having studied today. I had still not heard from any of the houses I was looking for, but the more I thought about this, I decided I would talk to my roommates for next year and find out if they would be willing to look for an apartment instead. They were fine with living in an apartment, and we did end up getting one, as I told before. And while I was still discouraged with my own lack of romantic relationship in light of Andrea being engaged, the Lord had a plan for her that was not his plan for me, and I was not ready to begin thinking about marriage with anyone right now. I was better off trusting in His timing.

I would learn later in life that the quote from Jeremiah is often derided as one of the Bible verses most frequently taken out of context. Reading the chapters around it reveals that God declared those words to a specific group of people at a specific time, not to everyone reading them throughout all of history. However, statements like that reveal the character of God, and although Jeremiah was not writing to me, the God who had a plan for his people thousands of years ago did also have a plan for me in 1996. The precise concept of “prosper” may not have involved material wealth in my case, but I just had to trust that God knew what was best for me. Those two verses became ones that I have known from memory ever since.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding,” I began singing under my breath. I liked that song, the one I had heard at Bible study before. I did not know any of this at the time, but the original vocalist of that song was the same age as me, and still a teenager when the song was recorded. The guitarist, who actually wrote the song, was not much older. The two of them and their band would go on to have a major pop hit a few years later, which would confuse me a little in a time when I tended to draw very strict lines between Christian and secular music. But that is a story for another time.

January 29 – February 2, 1996. Four midterms in one day. (#69)

November 7, 2020December 19, 2021 ~ Greg Dennison ~ 26 Comments

I stood at the bus stop on Alvarez Avenue with mixed emotions on a cold, dry Monday morning. A small crowd waited with me for the bus that would bring us to campus in time for 9:00 classes. I was not sure if I would have to stand or not; this was only the fifth stop on the bus route, but in this cold weather, fewer students would be riding bicycles to campus.

I was coming off of a high from the weekend. I made some new friends Friday night at Jeromeville Christian Fellowship, Eddie and Xander and Haley and Kristina and Kelly; we had a fun night of talking and games at the girls’ house. And Sunday Eddie and Xander and their roommates hosted a party to watch the professional football championship. Eddie borrowed a projector from his church and put a big bed sheet on a wall, so we could watch the game on a huge screen. It was a little dim, but it worked. After a year of feeling alone and less connected to my friends, compared to last year in the dorm, this felt like a huge step in the right direction. Eddie and Xander and six other guys from JCF all shared a house, with Haley and her roommates right down the street and another house of guys from JCF around the corner. Maybe next year I would be able to live in this kind of situation and feel more connected to people and things around me.

Despite being on an emotional high, however, two metaphorical black clouds loomed on the horizon. The game did not end the way I wanted, with the despised Texas Toros winning by a score of 27 to 17. Texas had won three out of the last four championships, and that would bring smug taunts from all of the haters of my Bay City Captains. The Captains lost in the semifinal round this year. But, more importantly, I was worried about this coming Friday, when I had midterms in all four classes on the same day.

On Sunday, at the football party, I had mentioned the four midterms. “Can you ask your professors if you can take the midterm on another day?” Eddie had asked.

“I think there’s a rule that they can’t make you take that many midterms on the same day,” Xander added.

I had not considered that approach; I had just assumed I was stuck with this crappy schedule. So my plan for today was to ask each of my four professors if I could take the midterm early. Hopefully, by suggesting early rather than late, they would see that I wanted to use my study time wisely and do my best, not get an advantage that others would not have.

“Not possible,” my professor for Differential Equations said curtly after I presented my request. “You got the dates for the midterms on the syllabus on the first day of the quarter. If those dates were a problem for you, you should have dropped the class.” This professor, a middle-aged balding man who told us to call him Larry, never bothered me before, but after that day I decided I did not like him.

I had an hour break before my next class, so I walked across the Quad. This was the oldest part of campus, dating back to the school’s founding in 1905. The Quad was a grassy rectangle surrounded by tall oak trees as old as the campus itself, with a paved path running north-south down the middle, and a few pines, redwoods, and other trees scattered on the grass. On a warmer day, the Quad would gradually fill with students sitting on the grass to study, or socialize, or socialize while attempting to study. But at ten in the morning on a cold day in late January, the Quad was empty except for the trees and a few students walking across it to get from one building to another.

The Memorial Union building lay just north of the Quad, extending all the way across it east to west. The building was home to a number of student-run commercial enterprises, the namesake memorial to University of Jeromeville alumni who died in wars, a post office, the campus store, offices and meeting rooms for the Associated Students organization, ATMs for three different banks, and my current destination, the Coffee House. This was a large student-run enterprise that served pizza, burritos, sandwiches, soup, and all sorts of other food items, in addition to the hot beverages after which it was named. Next to the kitchens and cash registers were large expanses of tables which made good places to study and people-watch.

I got a large hot chocolate and began scanning the crowded tables for an empty one, or for someone I knew. I saw Scott Madison from JCF sitting alone with some kind of fancy spiral-bound book in front of him. I walked up and asked, “Can I join you?”

“Hi, Greg!” Scott said. “Sure!” As I sat down and got out my math book, Scott slid the book in front of him toward me and said, “Check out what I got! It was on sale, because it’s already the end of January.” It was a day planner, which Scott had filled out with dates of upcoming exams and projects, Bible studies, JCF activities, and other plans he knew he had coming up.

“That’s nice,” I said. “I wish I could be that organized. Every year I get the little planner they sell at the campus store, and by the middle of October I’m not keeping up with it.”

“It really helps, especially when you’re busy like me.”

I grabbed Scott’s planner and turned it toward me, flipping to the week of August 11-17. Scott looked at me wondering what I was doing. I did not want to spy on his plans; I simply wrote “Greg’s birthday” on August 15.

“Nice,” Scott said. “I guess I have to send you something now.”

“It’s in your planner, so yeah, you do. That’s the plan.”

Scott and I continued alternating between small talk and silent studying until it was time for my next class, Math 108, Introduction to Abstract Mathematics. This was the first quarter that I had taken two math classes simultaneously, something I would be doing often as a mathematics major, as well as the first quarter that I took upper-division classes. Those unfamiliar with advanced mathematics would be surprised that this course involves very little calculation, instead covering mathematical logic, set theory, and the fundamentals of abstract algebra and analysis. The professor was a gray-haired, well-dressed man named Dr. Davis Cutter; his official title was “professor emeritus,” which I believe meant that he was officially retired but still performed some duties for the university. I always thought there was something pretentious about having a last name for a first name, but Dr. Davis Cutter seemed like a nice man. Maybe he would be nice enough to let me take the midterm early.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do that,” Dr. Cutter said. “We have a policy against that, and in order to maintain academic integrity, I can’t give out the test early.”

“Okay,” I said. “I figured it would be worth asking.”

“Good luck studying,” Dr. Cutter replied. “You’ll probably do fine.”

“Thank you.” Apparently this department policy trumped Xander’s rule about not having more than three midterms in one day. I had never heard of this rule other than Xander mentioning it yesterday, and by now I suspected it was not real.

After Abstract Mathematics, I had English 101, Advanced Composition. Every student at UJ had to take three writing classes; since I had passed the AP English test in high school, I only had to take one of the three. This instructor was a middle-aged hippie woman named Dr. Paris; I was under the impression that we would be learning how to write in the class, but she made the assignments about things like art and feminism, not exactly topics I was familiar with.

“Dr. Paris?” I asked as she was putting things away at the end of class.

“Yes?”

“So I noticed the other day that all four of my classes have midterms on the same day. Is there any way I might be able to take Friday’s midterm early?”

“Oh… I can’t do that,” Dr. Paris said. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. I thought I’d ask just in case.”

“I can’t just give it twice on different days.”

“I understand. See you next time.”

My classes so far today had all been in Wellington and Orton Halls, two buildings near the Quad that each contained dozens of classrooms used by all subjects. My last class was physics, back to back with English with no break, and not in the Quad area. As I walked to Ross Hall, where the large physics lectures always were, I thought about how everyone had rejected my plan so far. Larry’s statement about dropping the class especially stuck with me. It had never occurred to me to drop a class for that reason, or to plan my entire quarter around the dates of the midterms. It made more sense to me to plan my schedule in a way that works for my day-to-day life over the ten weeks of the quarter, even if that means one or two hard days of multiple tests or multiple papers due. But now I had to suck it up and accept the fact that I would have one very difficult day. And I would have another difficult day later in the quarter, since three of my classes have a second midterm on the same day, February 23.

I was still hopeful that I might get to take the physics midterm early. This class was in a large lecture hall with almost 200 students, and it would be difficult to get Dr. Collins’ attention after class. But I knew that Dr. Collins had office hours immediately after class, because I had been in there a few times with physics questions, so when class got out I followed him to his office in the Physics-Geology Building, adjacent to Ross. By the time I got there, three people were ahead of me in line.

“Dr. Collins?” I said ten minutes later when it was my turn. “I have four midterms all on Friday. I was wondering if there would be any way I can take the physics midterm early, so I can get one out of the way first.”

Dr. Collins thought for a minute, then checked his calendar. “I think I can do that,” he said. “Can you be here in my office Thursday at 3?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Great. I’ll see you then.”

“Thank you so much,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” Dr. Collins replied. “Good luck!”

I walked back in the direction of the Quad and Wellington, where I would be leading a tutoring group at 4:00. It was nice of Dr. Collins to reschedule my midterm. I expected him to be the least likely to make this arrangement, just since his class of 200 students was so much bigger and less personal than my other classes. I was not sure at this point if Dr. Collins recognized my face or knew my name. He was the first professor that I had had twice; I also took the first quarter of physics with Dr. Collins last spring, and I was in his office hours frequently after bombing the first midterm. This week, I would still end up taking four midterms in under twenty-four hours, but now at least I could concentrate on physics first, and then only have three midterms to study for when I got home on Thursday. This was a definite improvement.

I spent most of the rest of the week studying. I had enough routine homework to work on that I did not do a lot of special studying for the midterms until Wednesday. It was a rough week, and by the time Thursday afternoon arrived, I felt that I had very little free time or relaxation all week. I also owed emails to six different girls I knew from the Internet.

After eating a burrito at the Coffee House for lunch, I headed to Ross Hall for physics lab. I walked past the library, where a sculpture of an egg with a face had his nose buried in a book. One of the writing assignments in Dr. Paris’ Advanced Composition had been to research the meaning of a work of art on the UJ campus and write about it. I chose the Egghead sculptures, one of which was here in front of the library. To most of my peers, they were just weird, but I learned to appreciate them more after I read about them. The one in front of the library seems fairly straightforward, he is engrossed in his studies, although to this day I still do not understand why it is a different color than the other six Eggheads. I heard somewhere that students rub the Egghead during exams for good luck. I do not believe in luck, but with four midterms in the next twenry-four hours, I took no chances and rubbed the Egghead.

When I finished my lab, I walked across the path to the building where Dr. Collins’ office was and knocked on the door. “Hi,” Dr. Collins said.

“I’m here to take the midterm early. You told me to come now.”

“Oh, yes! Greg, was it?”

“Yeah.”

“Just sit here, and let me know when you finish. I’ll be working on some things here.”

I looked through the exam, reading every question before I started. Electric current… electric fields… watts, amperes, joules… I can do this. Everything looks familiar, like homework problems that I had studied last night. No problem. I finished the problems in about half an hour, then went over each problem again to make sure I did not make any miscalculations, and that my answer made sense. “I’m done,” I said to Dr. Collins at 3:40.

“Just leave it here on the desk.”

“Do I need to come to class tomorrow if I’ve already taken the midterm?”

“No. Take the afternoon off.”

“I will. See you Monday. And thank you so much for letting me do this.”

I went home and took a break from studying. I answered emails for about an hour, then ate a Hungry-Man dinner. After that, I continued studying, looking over the writing concepts we had learned in English class and all of the math problems we had done and words and theorems we had learned in the two math classes. I felt fairly confident about Differential Equations, but Abstract Math was a little more of a concern, mostly because Dr. Davis Cutter did not always follow the textbook, and my handwritten notes were a little messy and hard to read. I opened a blank Microsoft Word file and typed all of my notes for Abstract Math; that made them both legible and fresh in my mind.

The next morning, I walked straight from the bus stop to my Differential Equations exam. It was easy, as I suspected it would be, and I left class ten minutes early. I spent the extra time sitting against a wall in the Coffee House, since all the tables were full, reading my Abstract Math notes. I felt fairly confident by the time class began. When I arrived, I looked over all of the questions first, and all of them seemed straightforward. One problem mentioned the Well-Ordering Principle; I drew a blank on what that was. Ordering? Putting numbers in order? Oh, yes, any set of one or more natural numbers has a smallest number. This seems obvious in colloquial language but needs to be clarified in the exact science of abstract mathematics.

I had an hour for lunch, in which I gobbled down the sandwich and banana that I brought from home in five minutes so I could have more time to study for English. I had a mental block against English that had persisted since I got a B-minus in tenth grade English four years ago, the lowest grade I got in high school. By the time I arrived at Dr. Paris’ class, I just wanted to get this over so I could get home and enjoy a weekend of not having to study. The questions about sentence and paragraph structure were pretty straightforward and seemed to match everything I studied, and the part where I had to write, I did the best I could. I was not as worried for this class, because with the four papers we had to write, the midterm did not count for as large a share of the grade as my other midterms did. By the end of the hour, I knew that I had done the best I can, so I turned in my test to Dr. Paris and walked toward the bus stop.

I did it, I thought, as the bus left the Memorial Union and turned on West Fifth Street, passing fraternity and sorority houses. I had completed four exams in just under twenty-four hours. I was getting home an hour earlier than usual, since I had already taken the physics test that the rest of my class was taking now. And I felt confident about the midterms. I began my post-midterm relaxation weekend by collapsing on my bed as soon as I got home, at 2:30; I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, it was after 4:00.

I spent the next three hours wasting time on the Internet, talking on IRC, writing emails, and checking a few Usenet groups. I also worked on Try, Try Again, the novel I had been writing off and on for a few months, as I waited for people to reply to me. At seven o’clock, I drove to campus, since parking at night only is less expensive than parking all day, and walked to the lobby of 170 Evans, the lecture hall where Jeromeville Christian Fellowship met.

Eddie, my new friend who hosted the football party last weekend, was doing name tags with Raphael, who had been his roommate the year before. “Today was the day with all your midterms, right?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah. One of my professors let me take his yesterday. So I had three today. I think I did okay.”

“Good! I’m glad you got through that.”

I put on my name tag and stepped into the lecture hall, bumping into and almost knocking over Haley Channing as she walked up the aisle perpendicular to me. “Oh!” she gasped.

“Haley! I’m sorry!” I said nervously. Of course, life would throw this curveball at me; after all of my hard work and four midterms I felt good about, I end the week by embarrassing myself in front of Haley, narrowly avoiding injuring her in the process.

“Hi, Greg,” Haley chuckled. Hopefully that reaction was a good sign. “How are you?”

“I’m great. I had four midterms today.”

“Four?” Haley asked incredulously.

“One professor let me take one early, but I still had all four in twenty-four hours. And I think I did okay. I’m just glad it’s over.

“I would be too! I have a paper due Monday. I’m going to be doing that all weekend.”

“Good luck!” I said. Then, after a brief hesitation, I asked, “Where are you sitting?”

“Down there next to Kelly,” Haley replied, pointing to the back of her roommate’s head. “Want to come sit with us?”

“Yeah!”

“I’ll be right back.” After Haley stepped outside, I walked to the front of the room and sat next to Kelly. Haley returned a few minutes later, just as the band started playing. I did my best to concentrate on the band’s worship music and Janet McAllen’s talk and not be too distracted by Haley’s cute smile. And, after hearing her sing, I discovered that she had a nice voice too.

After JCF ended, I stood around making small talk with people for a while. I did not get invited to any social plans afterward, and I did not get to talk much more with Haley because she went home immediately afterward to work on her paper. This week, I did not care about having no social plans. I was exhausted after my hard week of studying, and a weekend at home by myself being lazy sounded perfect. I could socialize next weekend when I had recovered.

I did well on all four midterms, even the one in English that I was less certain about. That stressful week took a lot out of me, but I survived. If life was trying to get me down, it would take much more than four midterms in twenty-four hours. A year and a half into my studies at a somewhat prestigious university, I was still excelling academically. My future goals may not be entirely clear right now, particularly with my mathematics major, but I was keeping my grades up, and that would be important if I did go to graduate school eventually. School was always one of my strengths, and that had not changed in the last few years; all I had to do to get good grades was work hard enough.

And in August, when my birthday came around, I did in fact get a card from Scott. He was serious about sending me something after I wrote my birthday in his planner. I liked this new group of friends.

Mid-March 1995. I completely dropped the ball. (#30)

October 2, 2019December 19, 2021 ~ Greg Dennison ~ 15 Comments

Every Jeromeville student knows that Dr. Andrew E. Bryant is the best professor to get for general chemistry. His students love him. He has been named Instructor of the Year. He is personable and likeable, better at interacting with students than most people who teach in a 400-seat lecture hall. Dr. Bryant is known for pulling pranks on his class; I heard about one time on the first day of the quarter when he got some other chemistry professor to pretend like he was going to be teaching the class instead. This other professor went over a fake syllabus that included far more difficult assignments and strict grading than any reasonable professor would have. A student who was in on the prank kept complaining that this was supposed to be Dr. Bryant’s class, getting the other students worked up. The whole time, Dr. Bryant was sitting in the class disguised, and he revealed himself to the class about five minutes in. I wish I had been there to see that. Dr. Bryant is everyone’s favorite chemistry professor…

… in 2019. I didn’t get to take his class, because Dr. Bryant wasn’t at UJ yet in 1995. He started there in the early 2000s. And he wasn’t even Dr. Bryant yet in 1995; he was still an undergrad, at University of the Bay if I remember right. Instead of getting a good professor like Dr. Bryant, I got Dr. Albrecht, who was boring and hard to understand because German appeared to be his first language. And I was nodding off in his class today, because I was up too late last night talking on IRC with this girl named Jenny. (There’s a reason I brought up Dr. Bryant in the first place, but that’s another story for another time.)

I attempted to follow along with Dr. Albrecht’s lecture in the large lecture hall in the chemistry building. Until this year, this was the largest lecture hall on campus; that really weird-looking concrete building that just opened this year had a larger lecture hall. I tried to stay awake enough to take notes, but they were considerably less than legible. I became aware in my half-conscious state at one point that Dr. Albrecht was coughing. After a few more coughs, he said, “Excuse me. I need to get a drink of water.” The sudden change in routine caused me to wake up a little, and I sat up to see Dr. Albrecht step out of the door on the side at the front of the lecture hall.

A little while after this, I heard running water and swallowing sounds. I looked around, and people began to chuckle when they realized what was going on. Dr. Albrecht was wearing a cordless lapel microphone, and he had forgotten to turn it off when he went to get water. When Dr. Albrecht reappeared in the front of the classroom, the class greeted him with wild applause. I don’t know if he ever figured out that he had left his microphone on.

That was certainly the highlight of my classes that day. The rest of the afternoon, I just did homework and studied. At dinner time, I sat with a bunch of people from my building. They were already there when I arrived, so I sat down in the middle of their conversation.

“So we looked at Hampton Place today,” Liz said.

“Which one is that?” Sarah asked.

“It’s behind Albertsons on Andrews and Coventry. I like that place. It seemed nice and quiet, and it’s just a short walk to Albertsons for groceries.”

“You’d be in a two-bedroom?”

“Yeah. They said if we give them a deposit by Friday, they’ll save two apartments for us, one right on top of the other. Caroline and I upstairs, and Ramon and Jason downstairs.”

“That’d be a good arrangement. Taylor, weren’t you guys looking at apartments today too?”

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “We signed a lease at The Acacia. That’s on Acacia Drive, not too far from where Liz was just talking about.”

“That’s you and Charlie and Pete?”

“Yeah.”

I started to get a feeling of dread as I realized what they were talking about. They were making plans for living arrangements for next year. And all of this planning had happened while I was completely oblivious to it. I didn’t even think about this as being something I should do right now. The next school year was over six months away. I had time. I didn’t have a roommate, and the thought of living with a roommate was kind of scary, but I surely still had other friends who would need a roommate.

A few days later, I got back from classes in the afternoon, went back to Building C, and checked my email from my room. I had two messages, both of them forwarded chain letters. The first one was from Brendan upstairs, who sent a lot of forwarded chain letters and jokes; this one contained jokes about stereotypes of different universities in this area.

How many Bay students does it take to change a light bulb?
One to change the bulb, fifty-three to protest the bulb’s right to change, and twenty-six to protest the protesters.

How many Jeromeville students does it take to change a light bulb?
None, because Jeromeville doesn’t have electricity.

How many Capital State students does it take to change a light bulb?
One, and he gets five credits for it.

How many Santa Teresa students does it take to change a light bulb?
Twenty-six: one to hold the bulb, and twenty-five to throw a party and get so drunk that everything spins.

How many Walton students does it take to change a light bulb?
Only one; he holds the bulb and the world revolves around him.

How many Valley students does it take to change a light bulb?
None, because Stockdale looks better in the dark.

I laughed out loud at that last one. I had visited the University of the Valley in Stockdale with my family on the same day we first visited Jeromeville, and the surrounding neighborhoods looked really trashy and sketchy. And… Jeromeville doesn’t have electricity? What’s with that? While that is of course far from the truth, that does seem consistent with the way that urban elites in Bay City and San Tomas see the rest of the state.

The other email was from a girl named Jenny, whom I had met on IRC recently. It wasn’t a standard chain letter, though; it was one of those things where she wanted her friends to answer questions about themselves. Jenny answered nine questions that her friend Matt had sent her, then she forwarded the email to nine of her friends with a new nine questions for us to answer.

What is your favorite thing about Fall?
What is your go-to drink?
What favorite treat really hits the sweet spot for you?
Tell me about a favorite date or share a great date night idea.
Do you have a favorite family tradition?
What book(s) are you reading right now?
What one piece of advice would you give your younger self?
Do you have a secret or hidden talent?
What is one way you served or blessed someone else recently?

I hit Reply and started typing.

What is your favorite thing about Fall?
A new school year with a chance to meet girls… um, I mean new friends.

What is your go-to drink?
Coca-Cola.

What favorite treat really hits the sweet spot for you?
M&Ms. I love those things. I probably shouldn’t eat as many as I do.

Tell me about a favorite date or share a great date night idea.
Good question… my best date night idea is a night where I actually go on a date. Because that pretty much doesn’t happen.

Do you have a favorite family tradition?
I don’t remember how this tradition started, but every year at Christmas, we play Trivial Pursuit. My mom and I are both trivia buffs, and Grandpa also knows a lot of stuff, but he has the advantage of having been alive for some of the history questions.

What book(s) are you reading right now?
I just finished Forrest Gump by Winston Groom. A lot of the details are different from the movie, but I liked it. I loved the movie too. I just started reading It by Stephen King. My mom read this book when I was a kid, back when it was new, and I’ve heard it’s really good.

What one piece of advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t be so shy or afraid to try new things! I made a lot of new friends senior year of high school, and if I had actually gotten out more and met them earlier, I would have had more time before we all went off to college and lost touch.

Do you have a secret or hidden talent?
I know pretty much every highway in the western United States. My friend Sarah, when we met, she had me guess where she grew up by naming two of the highways in her city, and I did.

What is one way you served or blessed someone else recently?
Yesterday, I was walking around the Memorial Union, looking for a place to kill time between classes. I saw my friend Tiffany from math class, and she was having a hard time understanding the homework, so I helped her.

And my nine questions for you:
Were you named after anyone or anything, or for any particular reason?
What did you eat for dinner last night?
What’s a movie, TV show, book, song, etc. that you really like that most people haven’t heard of?
If you could go visit anyone currently alive on Earth right now, for one day, and getting yourself there was no object, who would it be, and where is this person?
Where is someplace you enjoy visiting that is not a traditional tourist destination?
Which dead celebrity or historical figure do you most wish had not died?
Coke or Pepsi, or neither, and why?
What do you like on your pizza?
What would you most definitely not want to name your future child, and why?

I sent this message to nine friends, all people I knew from the Internet who regularly sent me this kind of stuff. I didn’t send it to anyone from Building C, because of the time a couple months ago when Karen Francis got so mad at me for forwarding a chain email to the entire building.

I lost track of time while I was studying and doing homework, and I didn’t make it to dinner until after seven o’clock. None of my usual friends to sit with were there. I sat by myself at a large table, but a few minutes after I sat down, I heard someone ask, “Hey Greg! What’s up? You mind if we sit with you?” The words were spoken very quickly, so that they almost ran together.

I looked up to see Jack Chalmers, a tall guy with a year-round tan who wore shorts and sandals most of the time, including right now, even though it was only 58 degrees outside. He was with two other guys I didn’t know. Jack grew up in a beach town that I had never heard of before this year, south of here between Santa Teresa and San Angelo, and he always talked fast. Jack was in my math class fall quarter, and he lived in Building F.

“Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.” Jack and his friends sat at my table.

“How’s 21C?” he asked.

“It’s going well. I still have an A. My instructor is a grad student, and I think it’s her first time teaching. I had to explain something to her the other day.”

“I like my class this quarter. The professor’s hard to understand, but I can usually figure it out. You taking 21D in the spring?”

“Yes. It’s at 9AM somewhere in Wellington, but I don’t remember the instructor or room number.”

“I’m in that same class. There’s only one class at 9AM.”

“That’s cool.”

“What are you doing over spring break?”

“Nothing special. I’m going back home for the week. One of my friends from high school wants to get together and catch up.”

“You’re from Santa Lucia, right? Or somewhere near there?”

“Yeah. Plumdale.”

Gesturing toward one of the other guys at the table, Jack said, “Jeremy and his girlfriend and I and someone else we know are gonna take a road trip to Santa Lucia over break. We were just talking about the best way to get there from here. What do you think?”

Back in 1995, cars weren’t equipped with GPS, and there was no Google Maps to ask for directions. In order to figure out how to get somewhere, you had to read a map. A map was this big piece of paper that would fold out, with diagrams of all the roads in the area. Some people didn’t even read maps well, so they had to get directions by asking someone who was familiar with the area, although in 1995 I had no concept of the fact that some people couldn’t read maps. But more on that later. I always had this odd fascination with maps and highways, so Jack’s question was perfect for me.

“You know how to get to San Tomas?” I asked. “100 west to 6 south?”

“Yeah. Should we keep going to the coast from there?”

“No. That road always has really bad traffic. Take 11 south to Plumdale, where I’m from, and then take 127 west. And if you know where to look from 127, off the right side of the road you can see my high school. There’s a big mural on the back of the gym that says ‘Tiger Country.’”

“The 127, west,” Jack repeated. I noticed that Jack said “the 127” instead of “127” or “Highway 127.” My friend Melissa from high school said that too. She grew up south of me, as did Jack, and this was a peculiarity of the speech pattern of people from that part of the state. I always thought it sounded funny. In fact, in 2011 I had a girlfriend who said highway numbers with “the” in front; I made fun of her for it once, and she just glared at me. That relationship didn’t work out, although I should clarify that the highway thing was not the primary reason we broke up.

“Yes. Just follow the signs to Santa Lucia from there.”

“That seems pretty simple,” Jack said. “So do you know yet where you’re gonna live next year?”

I felt anxious as my brain processed what Jack had asked. It seemed like literally everyone was talking about this, and I didn’t even know where to start. “No,” I said.

“Do you have roommates for next year?”

“No.”

“I’ve heard places fill up fast. You might want to get on that.”

My anxiety spiked even more. Not only was everyone talking about this; it also seemed to be a bigger deal than I thought, even though it was only March. “Yeah,” I said. “First, I need to figure out who to live with.”

“What’s your roommate now doing?” Jack asked. “Would you want to live with him again?”

“I’m in a single room.”

“Hmm.”

“And most of the people I really know well already seem to have plans.”

“You can always find someone looking for a roommate.”

“I guess. I don’t know what it would be like living with strangers, though.”

“Yeah. I know a guy who is a junior, and he lives with people he didn’t already know. They’re all pretty chill, but you might get someone sketchy.”

“Right.”

“Good luck, man. Want me to tell you if I hear of anyone looking for a roommate?”

“Sure.”

To be honest, I really didn’t want to live with some friend of Jack’s whom I didn’t know. But at this point, I didn’t know what was going to happen, and I didn’t want to be stuck being homeless. I felt discouraged, like I had completely dropped the ball on this one.

Back in Building C, Taylor and Pete were sitting in the study lounge. “Hey, Greg,” Taylor said as I walked into the lobby. I walked toward them.

“What are you guys up to?”

“Nothin’ much. Just sitting.”

“I have no idea where I’m living next year. I keep hearing everyone talking about it, and I didn’t even think about it until I overheard everyone. Does anyone we know still need a roommate?”

“I don’t know,” Pete said. “Most of the people I’ve talked to already have plans. But keep asking. Plans might change.”

“And you can always find people looking for roommates,” Taylor added. “Check the classifieds in the Daily Colt. Or just look around on bulletin boards. I can let you know if any of our friends from church need a roommate, or anything like that.”

“Yeah. I’m a little nervous living with strangers, though.”

“That makes sense. But you never know. You might live with a stranger, and he’ll end up being your best friend. None of us with roommates in Building C knew each other before this year.”

“That’s true.”

“You’ll figure something out,” Pete said. “Start looking, but don’t stress about it.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said.

Associated Students publishes a guide to finding apartments in Jeromeville every year. I was vaguely aware that there were stacks of these apartment guides in many of the large buildings around campus, next to the boxes that held the free copies of the Daily Colt. I took a copy of the AS Apartment Guide the next day and started looking through it during a break between classes.

The city of Jeromeville is colloquially divided into six regions, although these six regions had no official legal status. The oldest part of Jeromeville, between the campus and the railroad spur leading north to Woodville, is called Downtown Jeromeville. The areas directly north of downtown and the UJ campus, but south of Coventry Boulevard, are called Central Jeromeville. West Jeromeville is west of Highway 117, North Jeromeville is north of Coventry, East Jeromeville is east of the railroad track and north of Highway 100, and South Jeromeville is south of 100, which means that it is actually southeast of downtown, but as the only part of Jeromeville south of 100, the “south” name stuck over the years.

Downtown Jeromeville was closest to campus, but it was by far the smallest of the six regions, and there were not many apartments downtown. Central was also close to campus, and also lacking in apartments. Most of the rental properties in those areas were old houses or small apartment buildings that were rented privately by owners and not published in the AS Apartment Guide. Larger and newer apartment complexes were scattered throughout the other four regions of Jeromeville. The Apartment Guide listed the number of apartments of each size at the complex (which did not necessarily mean that all would be available for the coming year), the monthly rent for each size of apartment, amenities offered by each apartment complex, and the nearest bus line. The local bus system in Jeromeville is jointly operated by AS and the city, so most of the routes and schedules are very student-centered.

I noticed a large concentration of apartment complexes in a section of north Jeromeville along Alvarez Avenue and Maple Lane. One of the apartments in this area was called Las Casas Apartments; I remembered a few months ago when Mike Adams mentioned a friend who lived there, and I found the name funny because Las Casas literally means “the houses” in Spanish. That might be a good area to look into; it wasn’t as old as the neighborhoods close to campus, and two grocery stores are nearby.

I also noticed that some apartment complexes in Jeromeville only had one- and two-bedroom apartments, and others, particularly the newer ones farther from campus, also offered three- and four-bedroom apartments. Some also had studio apartments, which I thought meant that one room was intended to be both a living room and bedroom. One complex called Walnut Tree Apartments in west Jeromeville even had six-bedroom apartments. As an adult, I now know that apartments this large are quite unusual in normal cities. Jeromeville has a market for large apartments, though, because most rental properties in Jeromeville are rented by groups of students living together.

I still did not know what my situation would be for roommates for next year, nor did I know how much Mom and Dad would be willing to spend on my rent, or if I would have to get a job. And just about everyone I had asked in Building C already had roommates for next year, with many having already signed leases. The AS Apartment Guide didn’t help with that.

One day, during the following week, as everyone was preparing for winter quarter finals, I was doing math problems in the common room downstairs. Jared, the weird guy from the third floor with the bushy blond hair, walked in, and I waved to him. “Hey, Greg,” Jared said, walking toward me and sitting in a chair next to me. “Ready for finals?”

“I’m getting there. What about you?”

“I have so much to do. I have a paper to write, and it’s due tomorrow.”

“I’m more worried about finding a place to live next year than I am about finals,” I said. “Everyone seems to have plans already, and I had no idea any of this was going on.”

“Yeah. This guy I’ve had classes with lives in a house just off campus, and they have an opening for next year. So that’s where I’m going to live.”

I realized about halfway through mentioning my concern about next year’s living arrangements that maybe I shouldn’t say anything in front of Jared, because Jared might want me to live with him. I really didn’t think I wanted to live with Jared. He was a nice guy, but a little odd. So I was a little relieved that Jared had plans for next year. “Do you know if anyone in this building still needs a roommate?” I asked.

Jared looked like he was thinking about this. “Phuong?” he said.

“Hmm. I haven’t talked to Phuong.” I hadn’t talked to Phuong because the thought of having a girl roommate seemed strange and inappropriate to me. People would get the wrong idea. And I didn’t know if I felt comfortable living in such close quarters with a girl.

“I hope you figure something out,” Jared said. “I need to get upstairs and work on my paper.”

“Good luck,” I said as Jared got up and climbed the stairs. A few minutes later, I went upstairs and back to my room. Later that night, after it was cheaper to call long distance, I called my parents and explained my situation.

“Don’t worry about this,” Mom said. “We’ll find something. And like you said, the worst case scenario is you have to live with strangers. But at least you’ll have a place to live.”

“I guess.”

“I’m sure not every apartment in Jeromeville is booked for next year already.”

“That’s not what I’m hearing people say. Apparently everything here fills up really fast.”

“People are always moving in and moving out. Something will be open.”

“That’s not how Jeromeville works. According to the AS Apartment Guide, most apartments in Jeromeville use something called the ‘Jeromeville Model Lease.’ Apparently someone designed this to be student friendly, but what it means is that every apartment operates on a 12-month lease from September to August every year.”

“They can’t all do that, can they?”

“It sounds like they do. At least most of them. It’s stupid that the city and the university think they can control the economy like that. That’s Communism. But people like Communism in this socialist People’s Republic of Jeromeville.” Technically, apartment complexes participate in the Jeromeville Model Lease voluntarily, so it is not Communism. If anything, it is a result of the free market; apartments use this to more easily market themselves to students, who are the overwhelming majority of Jeromeville renters. But thinking through whether or not the Jeromeville Model Lease is actually Communism is not something I wanted to do right now, since I was upset.

“And there’s no way you can be in a dorm again?” Mom asked.

“The dorms are only for freshmen. At least, you’re only guaranteed a spot for one year. That’s what I’ve read.”

“If you apply to be in the dorm again, is there a chance you might get in? Is it too late to apply?”

“I’ll look into that, but I don’t know what my chances are like.”

“Could you commute? Find an apartment somewhere else, like Woodville? Or even Capital City. Capital City is huge; I’m sure there are lots of apartments there. Even if it’s just temporary.”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t worry about that right now. Take care of finals first. And when you come home after finals, bring the Apartment Guide, and we’ll start to make plans.”

“I guess. And if I have time, I’ll drive or bike past some of these places to get a better idea of what the neighborhood is like.”

“Sounds like a plan. See, you’ll figure this out.”

“I guess.”

My last final was Thursday afternoon of finals week; I stuck around to unwind and talk to girls on IRC that night, and drove home Friday morning, March 24. My finals went pretty well. I didn’t find any of them to be particularly difficult, but I still felt a little apprehensive, because I rarely thought I did well on finals. I always feared the worst. And I also felt bad because I had completely failed at making plans for housing next year. Mom said not to worry, but I did worry, because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I like having a plan to follow, and this wasn’t one.

But as difficult as it was, I knew that I would be able to make something work. Maybe I would find a place of my own that wasn’t too unaffordable. I had a feeling that Mom and Dad would be willing to spend money on me, although I hated that. Mom and Dad had made a lot of bad decisions with their money in the past, and I hated for them to have to spend more because I didn’t do my job of finding roommates. I know I wouldn’t want that if I were ever a parent someday. I could always try to get a job next year if I felt like I needed to be contributing more.

I grabbed a tape at random and played it when I got far enough south for the Capital City radio stations to become fuzzy. The tape was R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People album. I took a deep breath as I tried to let the sounds of alternative pop-rock music and Michael Stipe’s strange lyrics drown out worries of not having a place to live next year. I was unsuccessful in that.

But maybe it wasn’t all worrisome. Maybe there was another plan in store for me. Maybe someone I knew would have a potential roommate back out at the last minute. Maybe I would be commuting from Woodville, or from Capital City. Maybe I would find strangers to live with, answering a roommate wanted ad or living with friends of friends whom I didn’t know personally. And wherever I ended up next year, maybe my living situation would lead to something good that would never have happened had I lived somewhere different. One can never tell.

In hindsight, knowing how this part of my story turned out, I can definitely say that that last part is true; my living situation for sophomore year did in fact directly lead me to do something one night, which in turn led to something which changed my life forever.

AUTHOR’S NOTE from 2019: Jenny, who wrote the email with all the questions to answer, is not an actual IRC friend from 1995; she is a current reader of this blog, who nominated me for another Sunshine Blogger Award. The rules are to thank the blogger who nominated you, answer the 11 questions the blogger asked you, nominate new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions. Thank you, Jenny! I don’t normally nominate people for stuff like this, as I said, but if any of you reading this want to do it on your blog, go for it. And post a link to your blog below so other people can go take a look at it.

Go check out Jenny at http://progressinbloom.com

In the story, I only answered nine questions, because two of Jenny’s questions for me refer to blogging, which didn’t exist in 1995. So here are those answers:

How long have you been blogging for and why did you start?
I started this blog in December 2018, because I like telling stories about my past, and I’m old enough now that life is very different now than it was in 1995, which makes the stories inherently more interesting.

What makes a blog article worth sticking around for— one you truly enjoy reading?
Good question. I would say being able to relate is a good characteristic (which also applies to books and movies and TV for me). I’m not going to read a blog about, say, the best way to have a great one-night stand, because I won’t ever have a one-night stand.

And my 11 questions for anyone who chooses to participate:

Were you named after anyone or anything, or for any particular reason?
What did you eat for dinner last night?
What’s a movie, TV show, book, song, etc. that you really like that most people haven’t heard of?
If you could go visit anyone currently alive on Earth right now, for one day, and getting yourself there was no object, who would it be, and where is this person?
Where is someplace you enjoy visiting that is not a traditional tourist destination?
Which dead celebrity or historical figure do you most wish had not died?
Coke or Pepsi, or neither, and why?
What do you like on pizza?
What would you most definitely not want to name your future child, and why?
iPhone or Android or neither, and why?
What celebrity do you enjoy following on social media the most, and if you don’t follow celebrities on social media, why not? (It’s up to you whether or not someone counts as a celebrity)