Decade in Review: 2000-2001

In a countdown for a new decade, I think a synopsis of the past years would be appropriate. With the time remaining being 5 days exactly, I need to do the reviews in 2 year increments.

2000

I rang this year at in with a bang - take that for what you will. I was on my second semester at college and part of a business fraternity. Yes, co-ed. I learned the hard truth about college credit cards and the beauty of online shopping that made it able to hide all spending from a parent.

That summer I finally moved out of my mom's house and moved in with my best friend from HS. That summer was full of drinking, debauchery and stories that told out of context wouldn't be very entertaining, so let's just say it was fun :) It was also one of the hottest summers I can remember and of course the A/C went out for a few days.

That was the year of the infamous "dangling chads" election which turned into a drinking game everytime they said "chad" or "dangling".

That winter took me on a trip to NYC and meeting a (guy) friend of a friend from Yale and getting a fake Arizona ID that actually lasted me a year of underage drinking in clubs and bars.

2001

I consider the spring semester a turning point in the technological age social scene. I spent hours on AOL talking to above mentioned Yalie, exchanging suggestions on songs to download on Napster (I am sure RIAA would sure me for millions with the amount of songs I had), thinking online class registration was so much better than having to call into a phone number and using a Telnet application for look for classes, and being a attention whore everytime we went out so that we can take "electronic" pictures and post them on our friends college webpage (which I would also make sure above mentioned Yalie knew about).

I had already had a cell phone for a couple years, but it wasn't until I went to Spain and discovered texting - which was unheard of in the USA as of yet. Of course one cannot fail to mention 9/11, which occured the day before I was to fly out of JFK to Spain for my study abroad. I stood steady in Conneticut waiting for the airlines to open up and got a call from my mom saying a previous biopsy I had came back with melanoma. So instead of a plane to Madrid, I was on a very solemn, almost empty Southwest flight back to Texas three days after 9/11. I had surgery to remove everything, and was on a flight to Madrid a week later.

After a couple nervous breakdowns on being in a foreign city, a trip to Salamanca to experience my first "no sleep" party night and 600 dollars in collect calls back home, I finally found an apt in the Estrecho neighborhood. A fellow American and Spanish friend of mine went out to celebrate, where, in a sea of hot Latin men, I of course find a Californian boy on vacation with his cousin and proceed to spend the rest of his time there hopelessly infatutatued and him promising to bring me to California - which he did during Thanksgiving.

I spent Chritmas back in Texas after shedding 10 pounds from walking everywhere even though I ate some the richest food ever and drank with almost every meal. Hopped back on a trans-Atlantic flight to Spain, just in time to greet my friends visiting me for the new year. How I didn't know about frequent flyers miles at this point was beyond me...