The Finite

The weather change has lured the sunbathers and frisbee-rs back out from their holes. Windows are thrown open, and sunlight streaks down the hallway floor. And in a building with this many windows, the wind is ferocious. Between the monolithic exterior, Bernoulli’s effect, and cross ventilation, winds race down the hallway before being swallowed up by the many open doors. The wind tunnel effect makes the walk down to the bathrooms a lot more dramatic looking. Newspapers tumble across the tile as they precede me. Flyers and posters are buckled from the walls as I pass. My clothes ruffle uncontrollably. This is all a very overdone ceremony that occurs whenever I go to pee.

Purdue assigns all of us a “career ID” which I’m led to believe is SOP for all colleges. The mangled remnants of our name become our username, email address and key to practically anything requiring electronic authentication for Purdue. Mine is boring, it’s just my last name. Apparently I applied early enough to avoid having a number assigned or my first two letters of my first name prefixed to it, thus avoiding the fates of those with common last names like Kim or Smith.

But I was in the computer lab the other day when someone behind me noticed whose documents were coming out of the printer.

Guy: “Tank”? Who’s named Tank? That’s an awesome-

At which point a 5 foot tall skinny Asian girl, came and took the printouts

I think we can assume her last name was “Tan” and that her first name began with a ‘K’. The system is a weird formula. I was silently grateful her last name wasn’t “Chin”.