An ode to the Ville (and the people therein)

It's 11:04 Wednesday night as I sit down to begin this entry. That means I have approximately sixteen hours and six minutes before taking off for the one and only Beantown. So I thought I'd take this one final chance to say farewell to the town that's been so good to me for the past sixteen years. I often (okay, fine... always) give the South a hard time, but at the same time, Charlottesville has always been the glorious exception to the generally god-awful rule that is this corner of the United States.

I have loads of reasons to admit that I loved this town. (I may be coming back in four months, but four months seems like an eternity to me right now, so I'm gonna go ahead and use the past tense here. I loved C-Ville.) I'm really gonna miss this place.

I'm gonna miss the fact that a place like Bodo's Bagels can be treated with more respect than most places of worship. I'm gonna miss the fact that Monticello is considered the greatest piece of architecture in the history of mankind. I'm gonna miss the unbelievably lofty god complex that has been hoisted upon "Mister Jefferson." I'm gonna miss the egomaniacs who can't stop bragging about USA Today and how amazing they think our town is. I'm gonna miss the snobs who are too pretentious to just call "first-years" freshmen and the "University Grounds" a campus. I'm gonna miss the spoiled little brats who can't stop complaining about how "there's nothing to do in this town," even though they'd probably be just as bored anywhere else. And, to conclude with an example not nearly as sarcastic and bitter as the five before it, I am most definitely going to miss the way Charlottesvillians look at Republicans as if they're some strange kind of alien life form. There aren't many places in the world like that.

(Luckily for me though, I'm heading off tomorrow to spend four years in another one of them. Ha.)

Anyway, when I said I was "concluding," I lied. Because I should definitely add that I'm also going to miss the people here. I'm not gonna name names here, because you all know who you are. But to everyone who's gone out of their way recently to say goodbye to me, I only wish I knew how to thank you. Perhaps writing this here blog entry is a start. If it is, then you're welcome. If it isn't, then I'll be back in December to say hey to everyone, and I can only pray that you'll be as awesome to me then as you were to me this past week.