Maybe…

Every morning, I wake up and consider the possibilities that await me.

“Maybe today is the day the Devil Rays spend some money on a good closer.”
“Maybe today is the day I have sexual intercourse with a woman.”
“Maybe today I won’t have to park on the other side of the world when I go to school.”

Well, my friends, it’s happened. No, not the first two. We know that these things may not ever happen. However, yesterday as I drove onto campus, I found a wonderful parking space on the north side of the Hume Parking Garage.

So to savor the moment, I backed in, put up my illegitimately-obtained Red 3 parking pass, and went on my way.

I think yesterday was the greatest day I’ve had in Gainesville yet, all because of the wonderful person who thought it necessary to leave the best parking space on campus open for me.

Creep Out!

During my long and wholly unnecessary absence from the wonderful world of the Internet, I have been acclimating myself to the strange and new world we call college: new people, new experiences, and best of all, a football team upon which I can fall back now that my beloved Buccaneers are officially worse at football than my dead grandmother.

But I digress.

There is a certain order in which people enter into one of my lectures every day. Now, this is a lecture of over 300 students, so you can probably consider it creepy that I single out these three girls. And so be it; if you don’t know by now that I am a creepy individual, there’s something wrong with you.

First, there’s Blonde Girl Who Waddles. She gives me Paris Hilton vibes. She comes in the door closest to me and literally waddles down the aisle like a penguin. She sits in about the third row. I only mention her first because she came in first last class. When she comes in, I’ve noticed, is largely a product of how much she cared to use makeup before class. If she comes in early, she is weathered, sleepy, and grumpy. If she decides to use makeup, she comes in about 10 minutes after class has started, much to the chagrin of the professor. Either way, I’ll still always love BGWW.

Next comes Girl Who Enunciates. She sits one row ahead of me and to my left. I have never actually heard her speak, but the way she trims her eyebrows and what I gather from lip reading tells me that she needn’t ever repeat herself because she takes special care to pronounce each syllable with as much accuracy and definition as possible. I respect her for this.

And last but certainly not least is Sport. I call her Sport because she has lips that resemble Gregory Smith’s in his role as Sport in Harriet the Spy. I’m not saying that she looks like a boy or anything – in fact, she is a good looking girl. Her lips just stick out like that. She computes on her iBook every day in class, mostly using Facebook. She recently changed her desktop wallpaper, which is a good thing because I’ve been of the opinion for about two months prior that she should change it.

Anyhow, now that I’ve completely mortified any girls with whom I might ever come into contact for fear of such opinions, I will leave the final judgment of my creepiness to you, the benevolent public.

I would not eat it on a plane

I have to admit that I have been rather lax in the field of making note of my rambling, quasi coherent thoughts for the past couple of weeks. It could be because of the newfound academia that college is presenting to me. But it’s probably because I’m on campus eating all of the time.

Let me tell you about college, my brethren: there is food everywhere. I’m not talking about a dining hall here and a fast food joint there; there is literally some way to get food at every point on campus. Yesterday, I almost got in line for free Krishna Lunch outside of Library West. But then I smelled it. And looked at it. No thanks.

The Obligatory College Post

I’m beginning to go through the deep psychological trauma of leaving home. Though subtle, thoughts of what I’m going to do with my life (read: without my parents around me every day) creep into my head. This happens especially at night. I’m pretty sure that it is this doubt of the future, in association with my obscenely whacked-out sleep schedule that keeps me awake here at 3:00 A.M.

But today, I did one of the hardest things I’ve ever done: I vacuumed my room. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that the fact that I never before vacuumed my room is disgusting. And it is. But let’s focus here, people.

This Sunday, I move away from home. And while it may only be two hours up the Interstate and I’ll be stopping in fairly often for visits, it’s still sad that I’ve packed up everything in my room except for my bed. As I vacuumed today, I looked at my room. It represented the last 18 years of my life. And what has it become? A cube with holes in the walls where pictures hung and a single, lonely bed in the corner.

Is that it? Is that all my childhood has become? A dusty old room with holes where the memories used to be?

Sure, they tell you that college will be the best years of my life. And I believe them. But I think that it’s the transition that gets us; we are trapped in the awkward purgatory between the long-passed memories of childhood and the not-yet-realized experiences of what is to come.

Perhaps, though, once I find whatever lies ahead on the road of life, I can finally sleep.

College Daze

Boy, does college look great.

I went to preview last week to register for my classes and to get the obligatory don’t-do-drugs-or-drink-because-you-will-die speeches. I had to pick a major. I think that’ll prove to be the hardest part of college.

I finally picked a beginning major of political science. Yeah, I know: everybody and their mother takes political science. And, you know, the world always needs more politicians. But I figure that someday I might be able to declare a dual major or a minor or get a certificate in Public Affairs or something of that sort. And then, who knows? Maybe I’ll go to the state and volunteer to take up teaching. God knows that we need fewer morons in front of the class, and the benefits of free coffee and summers off intrigue me.

But the best part? Well, I’m taking 12 credit hours of classes during the first semester, which is the bare minimum to be a full time student, which is the only way I can live the next few years of my life off of the benevolent taxpayers of the state of Florida. I conveniently scheduled my classes such that two of the four courses I take are solely internet-based courses. And the other two, American Federal Government and U.S. History to 1877, will take up a mere seven hours of my week: three hours on Monday and Wednesday, and only one hour on Thursday.

What ever will I do with myself?

Well, they don't offer Baseball 101

Like most of the rest of my graduating class, I got accepted into the University of Florida. So, I had to get a bunch of scholarship things taken care of yesterday as to facilitate my ability to attend.

I had to call the office of Chuck Murphy (president of the Florida State Baseball League) yesterday to see what I needed to do to get my scholarship check from the mascot gig this summer, and I got the information from his secretary.

I said goodbye, but this lady would just not stop talking. I don’t know if she felt that she had to make conversation with me to be nice or what, but this lady talked to me about everything there is to be talked about. Baseball, college, my career path, everything.

And I think that she was genuinely offended when I told her that my major is probably going to be political science.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with baseball!”

Listen lady: I’m a 5’6″, 140 pound IB student with absolutely no physical prowess. Plus, I’m a football man. And heck, there’s no money in baseball anyway.

About 10 minutes later, I was finally able to coerce her into hanging up the phone, but not until after I had spilled my life story to this complete stranger.

The holidays do some crazy things to people.

Movin' on up

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been getting all of my ducks of higher education in a row: my mascot scholarship from the Florida Marlins and the Florida State Baseball Association, my application to the University of Florida, my early decision contract to UF, my application for on-campus housing, and my letters of recommendation.

And I’ve decided that even though I really enjoy the rigidity and simplicity of the high school routine, I am really, really looking forward to college.

2020

Having officially proven my worth as a mediocre gifted student with my 2020 on the new SAT, I’ve decided that I’m not going to apply to, say, Harvard. Or Yale. Yale’s out, too.

It’s great to be a Florida Gator…

Call it torture

Dear colleges that are sending me application letters,

Everything you send to me looks alike. There’s a picture of a token group of interracial males and females sitting outside with books smiling, a list of the exact same undergraduate options, and a business reply card that I will probably never fill out.

If you want to make things really easy for me, you could just pool your publication funds together and send one collective parcel with the name of your college, its difficulty on a scale of one to ten, and an approximation of the number of girls in your town who might be interested in pursuing a long term relationship with me.

Yeah, that would be great.

Love,
Casey