Thank You, Tom Stamman

This post is a result of the collective efforts of Daniel Carroll and Stephanie Sablich.

Sometimes life can change rather quickly. It’s dizzying, really.
It is 4:10 in the morning, and we are sitting in Dan’s apartment, reflecting on how exactly we got here; to this moment in time, this place in the world, the edge of this new universe. If we track it all the way back, it began when we both decided to go on the Romania/Hungary trip offered by Tri-S at Anderson University. Why did we choose to go? Stephanie wanted to go to Europe, and this particular trip was relatively inexpensive. Dan signed up because it was the last open trip being offered. God or fate or destiny or whatever else intervened, and history was made.

We are sitting in Dan’s apartment after a night of revelation. We made friends in Romania and kept in contact throughout the following year, and finally got together almost exactly a year later because Dan turned down a job in Indiana and was headed home. Stephanie was in Anderson because she really royally messed up her graduation and had to take another class. We began to reminisce about the trip we were on just a year before, and then Dan ended the night with “Have a nice life...” and we both thought that would be it. Little did we know...

Stephanie thought and thought and thought about what to do with her life, and apparently Dan was thinking the same thing. Stephanie researched and applied and accepted a job in Romania, and happened to mention it to Dan on Facebook. Dan responded, a few weeks later also accepted a job in Romania, and on August 30 we got on a plane and flew to Bucharest. Dan left three days later to head west to Timisoara. Six weeks passed, filled with new experiences and all kinds of people and really difficult classes and a good bit of questioning. Stephanie missed Dan and decided to visit him, and so got on a train, which led to a night that ended at a smoke-filled, crazy bar called the Dungeon... and a walk back to Dan’s apartment, and a collective blog post in the early hours of the morning. Life can change in just a few moments, with just a few decisions.

As u dr hrtr b. I sat here and started typing but I was looking at Stephanie and not the screen. That is why I typed As u dr hrtr b. I think I meant to type “As I sit here” but then my fingers decided to click the wrong keys. I was always the guy in keyboarding class that secretly looked at the keyboard when I was doing the typing tests. I was really good at the fff jjj fjf set but I really excelled at the lll ooo lol set, lol. I think my highest word per minute average was 210 or something. I suppose I should articulate my words into something that is half as coherent as what Stephanie said but she pretty much explained everything better than I could have so I will discuss something else. The moment where I sit and stress about what I should type is the moment where I should stop trying to write. Therefore, I will end this blog post by saying Noapte Buna.