I guess I owe it to all you guys to give an update on coming through on an F1 since everyone keeps asking. :-)
So it went like this. Got to the airport 2.5 hours early but noticed there weren't a whole lot of people at the airport in general. I guess most people were back at work already. So I got tied up at the Duty Free checking out the Hockey Night in Canada stuff. Got me a baby blue ball cap ($25 CAD) and Simon a matching shirt ($35 CAD), not bad since there's no tax. Anyways, they've restructured the part of the airport after the Duty Free store such that they have a barrier so that you can't see how long the line is for US customs and immigration. Stupid me. I get around that divider thing and notice that there is a winding line up, kinda like Disney World, OK not that long.

It scared me for a second there but the line moved fast. One of the agents must've just lost his virginity or something because he was chipper as a trailer trash with a McDonald's coupon. After every person he saw, he shouted "happy new year", "have a great vacation" or "have a wonderful trip". I could hardly believe my ears. Of course I didn't get that guy. But luckily I didn't get the angry old fart sitting next to him either. I got the quiet, bitter, overweight brown-haired guy with glasses. He didn't say hi or even look at me too long, but he was nice enough to let me fill out my I94 (the form you're supposed to magically know to pick up from security guy at the end of the line) at his counter.

I had all this back up shit prepared - my bank documents, stuff from my school, immunization records - the whole nine yards. But all he looked at was the I-20 form that the school had sent me. When I finished filling out the I-94 thingy, he sent me to the interview room line up. OK that scared me cuz that's where they grill people and I thought I was supposed to just get a stamp and go. I lined up there for a few minutes and met some chinese dude from Calgary who was married to an American and was pissed off that his wife wanted to move back to San Jose.

Just then, another younger agent sent me back to the overweight brown haired dude who looked a little confused. I guess he was supposed to stamp some shit and didnt realize that. Got my stamps and the young guy escorted me to the interview room again. No questions or anything, he just needed to get on that computer and enter some data. As I waited for him to do that, I watched the other agents talk excitedly about this bogus passport they got from this Chinese woman. "Look you can even see the glue here", one bragged. "Yeah, you gotta bounce her", ordered another one.

As I left the room with my shiny new F1 stamp, I think I saw who they were refering to. There was a young fobby Chinese couple with a baby. An agent told them to exit the area the way they came in and contact some official before they tried to enter the country again. I don't know what their story is but I felt bad for them nonetheless.