everyone but me and juan

every six months i get some kind of publication from my Alma Mater. this weekend it was the Physics Illinois newsletter. on the front page is an article about JM, a classmate. she graduated the same year i did. spent the same year abroad that i did (although she was in england). had the same hell year that i did. she's in cambridge on a scholarship right now doing her master's degree, and will be going on to do her PhD at MIT next year. and to think, we used to do homework assignments together. this was 2001/2002 - aka, hell year. first semester not only was i depressed (it-would-be-ok-if-that-crane-fell-on-me depressed) but i also had five - FIVE - math-based classes. also featured in this issue of physics illinois is our E&M professor, Naomi. she was quirky. and canadian. (there's nothing wrong with being canadian. in fact, most of my professors in mid-level physics classes were canadian). she was named as one of the university's best teachers, as she has been every year she has taught. just when i think of her, i think of afternoons in her office getting all the help i could with Juan I. hoping he would talk to me. Juan I. was from ecuador. he smelled so good. and was an excellent kisser, as i would find out a few months later. it's just that after i returned from argentina (the first time), i was searching for something - maybe friends from other continents, i don't know, whatever was left of me after MP? and for some reason i knew that Juan I. was not from the US. hm could it have been the fact that he was here in my E&M class, and was NOT a geek? or maybe it was the one time i looked over his shoulder and read the heading on his paper and it was in spanish? anyway for the first few weeks i tried to get all the info i could about him without talking to him. i used to go to this international student house that had a coffee hour every week and featured a different country each time. the first time i talked to him was after Ecuador's night that fall. i believe i went by myself. i saw him and some other ecuadorians, but i didn't talk to him. i looked at him, we made some kind of nonverbal acknowledgement of our mutual presence in E&M. the next day was a friday, and we talked though i don't remember what we said. i went to kentucky that day with my mom and sister for a horse show. i was excited that he had spoken to me.

from then on we studied together. although come to think of it, i don't remember how that got started either. i think it may have started after one of those afternoons with naomi - i'd wait around until he left, then accompany him down the stairs to one of the infamous and now-haunted tables of Loomis Laboratory of Physics. and there we'd do homework. when was the first time we exchanged numbers? was is first or second semester? i think it was first semester - i may have called him one night to see what he was doing and he invited me to a party. yes i remember that, and at said party i tried canelazo - made from boiling cinnamon sticks in water and adding vodka- yummm. that was one of the best parties i've been to. obviously doing homework together had started before then. i must say though that i maintained my distance. i didn't even realize that there may have been chemistry. and nothing did happen until march of that school year.

with the new semester came a new crop of internationals and with them, Paco. he was from mexico. he became our other partner in crime (hahahahsnort). and anna, from italy, as well. (anna is also mentioned in the aforementioned Physics Illinois). i just remember valentine's day that year - anna and paco and juan and I frantically studying for our exam the next day. anna was the first to leave - she was just taking the class to get better at E&M (she didn't really need the class, as she was already in the PhD program). she said she had plans with her boyfriend, and we saw her the next morning wearing the same outfit in which she had left us. shortly after anna left, paco and juan and i went to pizza hut. then we went to my apartment. for more studying. paco then left, and it was Juan and me. ooh you're probably thinking, hot physicist physics... but no, not even flirting. i don't remember if it was before this exam or the next... juan made a comment about how he had a female friend that he thought about who was really cute. in the back of my mind there was the blink of thought that it could be me, but i just assumed he had another female friend. we'd been seeing enough of each other though that that wasn't very likely.

god it's funny how of all the things you remember about a person, scent is so powerful. i can still smell the leather of his coat, plus his cologne, and then the undercurrent of ecuadorian food. that night i think he left at two or three - the nights get very long when you study physics, and not in a good way. i remember i did ok on the test - probably between fifty and sixty percent (yes we lived by the curve) but not as well as i would have liked.

we continued to do the homework together every week. then we went skiing. paco and juan had a friend from another class, we'll call him Alan. they all wanted to go skiing one weekend, and since they invited me and my house was in between U of I and Devil's Head, we all stayed at my house. there was definitely some flirting between juan and myself, but nothing i took seriously. i remember sitting in the back seat of Alan's car, juan opposite me, and him staring at me while we were kind of joking about something (of what? i don't know, it was washed out by further events).

one weekend andy invited us all to a party. i went with my sister. juan was there. we sat down on a couch together. i think by the i had recognized that things could happen between us. or maybe i hadn't. i just remember talking to him on the couch, maybe i was a little uncomfortable and i wasn't being myself? we were talking about something unimportant and then he just started kissing me. at that moment i distinctly remembering thinking "let go" (ie, of MP). i stopped it because my sister was sitting right next to us on the couch. there was one other kiss. they were both great. i don't have any better words to describe them because whatever we had at that moment fizzled for some reason right afterwards. i, like any girl, thought, what if he wants something now? and started getting a little nuts, but not stalker-ish or any different than i was before. only any time i mentioned salsa dancing or a party or anythng else, his response had an importance that hadn't been there before.

whatever happened in the weeks leading up to the end of the semester is unimportant. from then on we ceased to do homework together. he would make up excuses not to work with me. and we didn't have the same friendship as we'd had before. was he just waiting to kiss me? waiting to try for more so i could be another one of his amigas? i'll never know. the last time i saw juan, we were dropping him off at his house after an end-of-the-year dinner among our regular study crowd. he had other plans. we took some pictures and he said goodbye to every single person, but me. i thought about sticking up my middle finger when they took a picture of us with his camera, but thought better of being remembered that way and smiled as if nothing had happened. i had to pretend i was ok.

the semester after my year abroad, my heart started beating quickly one day as i was leaving the union when i walked by a guy sitting on a bench that could have been juan. i remembered that he had expressed a desire to return to U of I for the PhD program; it was possible. the week before i had run into one of his old room mates, and he invited me to a party. i went. half-afraid that i would see juan, but half wanting to. i found the roommate, wished him happy birthday, and then asked him if there might not be someone here whom i may not like to see? he looked at me and asked if it was juan who i was taking about. i gave the affirmative and he told me, juan se murió. un accidente de tránsito. i couldn't believe it. my heart started pumping once again. i had hated him for more than a year for throwing away our friendship. and now i can only remember the good things about him. those bad things aren't important - a lo mejor they were miscommunications. it just taught me that hate is so strong. though my hate had nothing to do with his death, it felt all that worse to know that he had died some random day i may have woken up and thought, what an asshole. it's better to not hold grudges.

so when i read physics illinois today, i was surprized at how many of the people i knew and worked with that year were mentioned, either for scholarships or special awards. everyone but me and juan.