Students UIUC

Finally, the day has come when my University account is deactivated. I open telnet to students, log in, as I must have done so many thousands of times in the past few years, except this time, a big banner message greeted me: ACCOUNT NOT ACTIVE. That's it, no hug or anything? How rude. I was expecting a tearful goodbye note from the chancellor himself, with a picture of a flower and cheesy music playing to make me feel missed. But no, I get ACCOUNT NOT ACTIVE. That's it, I am creating my own email server, inviting University employees to join, then cut them off after four years with a message that says SO LONG SUCKERS. Haha just kidding. That was a dumb idea wasn't it, impractical as well.

So I guess that means no more 8 spam messages a day, AAA/TASC updates, ECE Currents, etc. Not like I ever read any of those anyways. Hopefully I will be able to keep my yahoo account relatively clean. Already I'm getting some spam from who knows where, but so far it's been much more bearable than UIUC was.

But the thing I'll actually miss most is my Olivia folder, a collection of about 100-200 messages that we wrote in the past few years. The first one dates back to September of 2000, more than half a year before we officially started dating. Back then, we pretty much just argued about Britney Spears, replying maybe once every couple days but going back and forth consistently for a long time. Since we went to different schools, our relationship was basically limited to these emails for well over a year, other than the occasional phone conversation or hanging out on some weekends (almost never alone, though). Looking back, it's amazing to me that we became such close friends over this time, in spite of the distance separating us. The moral is, don't underestimate the power of email and the "meant to be" factor when considering relationships. Anyways, before I share too many personal details about me and Olivia on this public blog, I better stop.

Just last week when I was at Champaign for the Expo, I was impressed that I could still login to the Union and EWS labs, but chances are that those are probably deactivated now too. My ties to the University are all but completely severed. I can't use IMPE anymore, get discounts for football games, or shoot pool at the Union for student rates. Good thing I can still flash my I-Card at movie theaters for a while, it will hopefully be at least 10 years before I look older, have a beer gut and gray hairs. Also this past week, I got my deposit check back for my apartment and money for our sublease from my roomie. Bye-bye 312 at 6th and Healey Green Balconies for good.

It's ok though, maybe I can live vicariously as a student through my sister and ask her to use her Student status to download McAfee VirusScan updates for free. Strange that I don't happen to notice these types of little privileges college students get until I'm no longer a college student. Oh well, life goes on and there goes yet another example.