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Archive for wahoowa
October 23, 2005 at 10:27 pm · Filed under wahoowa
I keep running into UVA kids everywhere. For how huge that school is, and how varied its graduates are, I sure as heck run into a lot of people from there. In addition to the episode over the summer, I ran into a girl I know on my most recent plane trip down to DC. My department sponsored a Sam Adams Brewery Tour Friday evening, and I ran into a girl wearing a Virginia Nursing shirt.
Last Thursday night, Ryan and I went to a schmoozing event at Ropes & Gray, one of the law firms who hired him for next summer. I randomly ran into a girl I knew from UVA. Her husband goes to UVA Law, and got an offer from the same firm, so they flew up here to Boston for the same mixer event.
Saturday, while walking home across the BU bridge, I stopped to check out the traffic on the river and watch some scullers start their Head of the Charles race. While stopped and gazing at the river, I heard my name called. It was an UVA friend who came into town to watch the races. How random that she happened to walk by where I was standing on the bridge?
Anyway, that’s 4 random UVA sighting in less than a month. That’s not to mention all the people I saw at the UVA vs. BC football game, but that’s not exactly random since many alums went.
June 28, 2005 at 1:23 am · Filed under wahoowa
There is something about Northern Virginia that just exudes UVA. Visiting Ryan this past weekend in Clifton made me realize that there are a whole lot of us wahoos over there. Following Ryan’s brother, girlfriend, and various cousins & relatives out and about Saturday night, we ran into random UVA kids, some friends, others simply acquaintances, but all in all, many people whom we knew from college. Some encounters were awkward, to say the least, and others were shocking, maybe even a bit flirtatious. But if anything, that’s really only to get back at Ryan for his awkward friend (singular, not plural).
In addition, flying down there for the weekend Friday night, an UVA acquaintance from three years ago just happened to be seated right next to me. I had window; he had aisle. It took us a few minutes, a couple of furtive glances on his part at my Virginia ring, and a lot of thinking on my part about how to break the ice, but we did it, and proceeded to chat the rest of the 1.5 hour gate-to-gate flight from Logan to Dulles.
In my opinion, the world is not that small that I would run into 4 acquaintances and 1 friend in the course of less than 48 hours. I like to think that we wahoos are just a tad bit bigger than life.
June 24, 2005 at 1:49 pm · Filed under wahoowa
My friend Mike and I decided to show our respective school prides by wearing Hopkins and UVA tshirts every day this week. He pooped out on me starting yesterday, claiming that some of his Hopkins shirts were dirty. I made it through the whole week, and really when I took a look at all of my shirts, I realized that I have enough UVA tshirts to wear one every day for 2+ weeks. Going through them brought back memories of things/activities/events that I had completely forgotten about. All in all, it made me miss Virginia.
Motivated by this bout of sadness, I started looking through all of my pictures from UVA. I realized that I really don’t have all that many. This made me more sad, and it made me want to do something with the ones that I do have. I wanted to make a web album of UVA pictures at one point last semester, but got too lazy. No album this time either, but I did make a couple of collages of some great times and some great friends.
May 8, 2005 at 12:35 am · Filed under wahoowa
“Comic books suck — remember those kids that read comic books? Neither do I — everyone talks about comic books as if they spent their childhood reading them but really they were watching teenage mutant ninja turtles” –rodchat guy
September 28, 2004 at 1:23 pm · Filed under wahoowa
So I flew to Charlottesville this weekend. It made me realize that it’s probably better that I didn’t stay in Charlottesville this year. I remember a couple of entries ago, I said something about how homecoming the first year out of school is the best time to go back because it hasn’t been long enough for it to feel alien yet. Homecoming the first year is probably still the best time to go back because things aren’t as alien as they would be say for the 5th Homecoming. However, I felt pretty alien in Charlottesville this weekend. Not alien in the sense of being in a different country where I’m unfamiliar with everything … but alien in the sense that I never once really felt like I belong there anymore.
During the Saturday afternoon Syracuse football game, I sat in the student section with a bunch of alums who just graduated this May. I’m sure we looked young enough that no one would ever notice that we were alums, but we didn’t FEEL young enough. Football games in general are a different atmosphere, and I hate Al Groh. Having a good football program doesn’t mean that UVA has to also become the traditional big football program school. The majority of alumni still hold dear to our hearts the tradition of decking out in our Sunday bests for games. What’s so wrong with that? Why must Al Groh try to phase it out?? Orange tshirts just are not the same, and 80% of the student section wore orange tshirts, including all the First Years who each got a free so-called “Orange Fever” official football shirt.
Friends are still friends, and it was great seeing friends. It’s actually funny how you get closer to people after not seeing them for a long time. Everyone of course asked about Ryan, which was a bit awkward for me, I think. I know that most people were just trying to make conversation, but it was a constant reminder that these people were HIS friends who only became my friends because Ryan and I started dating. I’m glad though to have had some free time to spend with my friends during the weekend, something I very much neglected to do Fourth Year.
It was a bittersweet weekend overall. I think the sweet part comes from the thought of actually being in Charlottesville again seeing friends and trying to relive the old times. Everything else was bitter, including the reliving the old times part because we no longer belong there! Grounds weren’t as beautiful as I remembered it; I think I played up UVA’s sights too much in my own mind while thinking about the drabiness of MIT.
My thoughts on UVA now, just mere months after graduation, is comparable to my thoughts on Governor’s School three years after graduating: the friends I have from college will remain with me, but I am content with not being there anymore. The past four years are wonderful memories, but memories are exactly that: memories.
Once a wahoo, always a wahoo. Wahoowa!
September 7, 2004 at 10:00 am · Filed under music, wahoowa
My UVA email account still works. If you search for me in the UVA directory, I’m still there, along with my status as an “undergraduate student,” my email alias, and my webpage address (on the UVA server of course). If you search MIT, I’m there too, with a little “G” designating my uncertain graduate status. Maybe UVA’s just really late in the game of deleting folks out of their database. Ryan just said to me yesterday that he wished UVA would just get done with it and delete us out of the system. Part of me wishes that, but a greater part of me am really glad it’s not yet gone. I can’t imagine how it would feel to finally realize that they’ve flushed me out of their system entirely.
On the other hand, MIT’s not that bad of a place. I’m having a good time meeting new people, but I also think that these first few days, people aren’t really themselves. It’s like the first few days of college; everyone goes into friend-meeting mode. Nevertheless, I’m glad to have made a few friends, and I feel so free these days walking around with no responsibilities. Too bad classes start tomorrow. It’s as Jump, Little Children says: “But tonight, not so far above me / Tonight, I’m sleeping under this utopian sky / And I don’t ever want to wake up / Please don’t wake me up”
Yeah, just let me sleep tonight and never have to wake up to tomorrow’s 8:30 biochem class.
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