Fin

And here shall be an end.

When I was 15 I flew to Kentucky with my FFA chapter (oh yes, I rocked the blue corduroy) for national convention. As I stood, groggy in the Atlanta airport, watching my advisor try to locate out connecting flight, a random woman darted out of the passing swarm and hugged me.

"You're Cherry Weber's daughter, aren't you?!"

Dear God in heaven, what just happened to me?!

"Um... perhaps?"

She wound up being an old friend of my mother's, and how she recognized me I have no idea. But to this day my mother laughs about my ability to find random people in a crowd. Whenever I step into an airport south of the Mason-Dixon line I keep waiting for someone I've never met to run up to me out of the crowd. I sat at gate J8 in Miami International keeping an eye out for excited strangers.

Princeton Review flew me back to Miami for two students. I had half a mind to tell them that when they showed up at my last class yesterday.

You have no idea how much my supervisors must love you.

To be honest, I didn't think anyone would show up, and I'd wind up entertaining myself in an empty classroom for three hours. My attendance slackened off considerably in the last three or so classes. School started again. People moved home, or away from home. Students already scheduled for the MCAT took their test and didn't feel the need to come anymore. It feels a little insulting to walk into a very empty class (Do I suck that badly??), at the same time, I really enjoy the ability to give my attending students such personalized attention. The fewer of us there are, the more fun we have.

After class I decided to find somewhere nice for dinner, and then go buy a few postcards for various people. Folks, there is not one postcard to be found anywhere in Miami. I must have bought the last one last week. I went to three gas stations. I checked a Publix a Winn-Dixie, and a Wal-Mart. Eventually I staggered into Walgreens, tired, and an hour behind schedule.

"Do you have postcards?"

"Spanishspanish cards?" Points at the greeting card aisle.

"No, postcards. With pictures of dolphins and pelicans and places I never actually visited or saw."

"Spanishspanishspanish, hombre." Points toward the photo counter.

How I know I am not a good person # 2: I stood there seriously considering grumbling back in unhappy French.

Mmes. Barnes and Grim would not be proud of you.

Sigh. "Thanks any ways."

So no postcards from Miami for anyone else (you lucky people who got the last postcard in the entire city of Miami know who you are. Guard that thing with your life, it's like an ancient relic.)

Each time I travel somewhere I keep hoping to have some sort of magical epiphany or realization before I leave. And then when I think back on the trip I can always remember "oh yeah, I learned that lesson the night we climbed the top of the Duomo tower in Florence and watched the sunset." (Incidentally, I did have an epiphany on that trip to Italy, and guarding one's wallet with one's life in a busy airport is probably the best lesson to learn, but I like stuff that's a little more profound.) Unfortunately, you can't force profundity, so if the best lesson I learned this summer was how to find lightning whelks under 5 feet of water, and that body powder and bar soap will take out oil stains, I guess I'll take that and be content.

I keep trying to figure out what exactly I'm going home to. I have no job, no school, and no prospects of either, probably for a long time. I have never been this free in my life, and I really have no idea what to do with it. Really, I could pick up and move to another country next month (in theory at least.) Or run off to Puerto Rico to teach.

Either way, I should probably figure something out soon. I mean, I have a blog to entertain now. :)