People UO has given me

(A post I've been putting together since the middle of finals week)

Some of them I got to know, some of them I've traded email with, some of them are simply people I noticed. Here's to the people that made this year stand out. There is...

Dancing Physicist, to start out with. Everybody's heard about him.

Then Fidelity, whom I knew in high school but didn't really get to know well then. I ran into her once fall term, and she brought back my pottery for me. Winter term we were in the same math class, and this term we've had lunch together almost every day after math. We will both be in Portland this summer.

Then there was that really beautiful girl in my chemistry class. I noticed her after a couple weeks; she might have been that "feisty voice" who told Williams he ought to take something from the physicists in response to the disappearance of the stick. We talked a few times - she liked my lip piercing - and gave each other notes when the other was out sick, but never got close.

Another girl sat right next to her. She runs and she lives in the dorm right next to Dancing Physicist. We talked a few times too.

Also from chemistry, a cute guy sat behind me whom I didn't really notice until a few weeks ago. He's funny and can calculate damn fast. I was chatting him up after class when Fidelity came in for her physics class (held in the same room directly afterward) and broke into the conversation trying to figure out how we both knew him. Turns out he's a 28-year-old postbac student who's taking only science. Never would have guessed.

My women's studies discussion first term had a lot of loud voices in it, one being a girl from Minnesota who joked with the GTF, also from Minnesota, about the "snow" we get here. She mostly disappeared winter term, but at some point I found out she was friends with someone I sort of knew from MLC in 8th grade. Things really kicked off when one day I went looking for Dancing Physicist and found him folding cranes, being taught by this girl. We've both been very fond of her since then. Just a few days ago, she called out to me on the sidewalk. I looked over at the group the voice came from... and recognized two people as her. It took me a very confused couple of seconds to remember from women's studies that she has a twin. We've traded email and I genuinely hope we stay in touch.

This Saudi exchange student walked by Dancing Physicist and I in Carson one time while he had his Arabic book out. They immediately struck up a conversation in half English, half Arabic. Since then we've both run into him all over the place. He's in Portland for a short break before continuing classes in the summer term, and I'm going to hang out with him next week.

The most Portland-y person I know from UO was a radical queer activist whom I first met because (he) started a sex positivity group. (She) came out as trans partway through the year, lives in a cool co-op off campus, and always seemed like the most down-to-earth of people I knew on campus.

There was a girl on my floor who was always really friendly to me. (She was always really friendly to everyone, but it was still nice.) I didn't expect to stay in touch with her, but she came in and made big show of saying goodbye when she left so I traded email with her.

Dancing Physicist's former roommate is a cute math major whom I only met twice, but I gave him my email the second time.

Oh yeah, and my own roommate, who spent most of five months ignoring me. Gotta love dorms.