The first time I chose UF back in 1986, it was a smart decision.
At the time, I had just moved to Gainesville from our farm in New York. I was attending a private college in Buffalo where I studied advertising and media. My mom got a promotion to the fiscal department at The Malcom Randall VA Medical Center.
When she announced the news to the family, I thought, yeah, shorts all year round.
I applied to UF and Santa Fe College and got into both, and because the College of Journalism and Communications was and still is renowned, I was thrilled to become a Florida Gator.
I had the time of my life here, working as the photo editor of the Alligator and then as a photo intern at the Gainesville Sun.
I have moved 26 times since I left Gainesville. I have worked as a photo intern at the Ann Arbor News and various Syracuse newspapers. After freelancing in Denver, I landed a job designing the Oakland Tribune. Later, I became a high school teacher.
You have met those people who lived here a long time ago and have come back to roost - that's me, too.
I can't quite explain how or why we come back, but I once wrote a feature about homing pigeons and their innate ability to return to the place where they were born. I wasn't really born in Gainesville, but I certainly discovered who I am here.
So now that I am home to roost, I thought I would share my top 10 reasons why it's so cool to be older, wiser and back in school:
- The youngsters give up their seats for me on the bus.
- Sneaky smokers sitting in the outdoor amphitheater by the Reitz Union think I work here so when they see me, they run and hide. Then, I yell out, "Sir, this is a tobacco-free campus," and they run faster.
- Students whom I don't know randomly wave at me because they miss their moms.
- I get all of my professors' jokes.
- I already own the movie posters of the flicks they show at the Reitz Union movie theater.
- My mortgage payment is less than the rent for one room in a four-bedroom condo at an all-inclusive apartment complex.
- The trees next to the French Fries have grown 20 feet taller since I graduated. Now, it doesn't look out of place at all.
- I can sit in the alumni or the student section at football games.
- No more relying on any rascally library coding system to do my research, but I could if we lost electricity.
- Finally, I can still publish work in the Alligator.
Suzette Cook is a 1990 graduate of UF's College of Journalism and Mass Communications and a current master's student.
