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Monday, July 07, 2025

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METRO  |  POLITICS

Darts and Laurels: Oct 5, 2018

Oct. 4, 2018

“This is Ground Control to Major Tom,” David Bowie sings to you through your earbuds. As you peer through the tinted window of an RTS bus, the twinkling lights floating around campus buildings seem a thousand miles away. The constellation of lamps hovering above Turlington Plaza shine like lighthouses welcoming early morning visitors like yourself. Campus feels as if it were Mars, desolate and complete with the red brick terrain. You are the only passenger in the large tin can of a bus rolling slowly up Newell Drive. You can barely see anything in the dark, but the bus calls out the stops autonomously and seems to know which way to go. The air is cool and inviting as the bus slows to a stop and the doors part to let you out. Standing in the silence, you see UF in a new light, quarantined from the usual activity and bustle — in a cosmic bubble without distraction or noise. Soon campus will wake, but for now, the stars still twinkle in the soft daylight peeking over the horizon. The obelisk of Century Tower looms like a dark monument from another world.

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