it's weird to not be at unh today.
30 August 2010
29 August 2010
something about airplanes
this is my mother & i. we frequently wear the exact same color combinations, though not on purpose.
On September 15 we are flying from Boston to London to Glasgow!
27 August 2010
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!
Sometimes I get really freaked out over moving to a new country. It's not like I will be a state or two away from home.
But then I remember that the ocean is a state
and a country is a state
and when you look at it that way
I really will be only a few states away.
---
I'm bad at change and this is a big one.
I have the pre-college jitters again. Only this time they are simultaneously pre- and post-college jitters. I know what I am doing. I know what academia is like, I know what I am studying and how to study it. But I don't know what happens next.
Nobody moves transatlantically by themselves to a new country for five years immediately out of college... right? I mean, I guess if you are in the peace corps or if you are one of my friends teaching English in a third-world country you are in the same boat as me. But you have a timeline, and then you come back home. I am pretty much moving to a new country semi-permanently; I don't know if I will ever be moving back to the States, which is terrifying in the present tense. I don't know anyone there, I'm going alone. It's not like a study abroad program where there's a whole crowd of people - I'm going by myself.
Right now, five years feels very permanent - even though I am going to be fine in the long run. People move all the time, and besides, you have to move sometime. You don't want to stay in one place for too long anyway. Everything is always fine once you get settled.
But in the meantime, everyone wants me to be excited about Scotland. And I am, I promise. I worked really hard to get into this program. It's just that right now I feel like I'm treading water while holding a toaster above my head.
But then I remember that the ocean is a state
and a country is a state
and when you look at it that way
I really will be only a few states away.
---
I'm bad at change and this is a big one.
I have the pre-college jitters again. Only this time they are simultaneously pre- and post-college jitters. I know what I am doing. I know what academia is like, I know what I am studying and how to study it. But I don't know what happens next.
Nobody moves transatlantically by themselves to a new country for five years immediately out of college... right? I mean, I guess if you are in the peace corps or if you are one of my friends teaching English in a third-world country you are in the same boat as me. But you have a timeline, and then you come back home. I am pretty much moving to a new country semi-permanently; I don't know if I will ever be moving back to the States, which is terrifying in the present tense. I don't know anyone there, I'm going alone. It's not like a study abroad program where there's a whole crowd of people - I'm going by myself.
Right now, five years feels very permanent - even though I am going to be fine in the long run. People move all the time, and besides, you have to move sometime. You don't want to stay in one place for too long anyway. Everything is always fine once you get settled.
But in the meantime, everyone wants me to be excited about Scotland. And I am, I promise. I worked really hard to get into this program. It's just that right now I feel like I'm treading water while holding a toaster above my head.
23 August 2010
incredible things are happening in the world
YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT CAME TODAY.
My visa! Yes! Apparently the consulate decided to take pity on me after all of this purgatory AND GRANTED ME MY VISA. I am very, very pleased, as this saves me several more weeks of anguish and stress. Conveniently, they UPSed it to me - I am glad that somebody involved still trusts UPS. But this is great news! I can get on with my life! Time to buy a plane ticket!
Also, I got my first paycheck from The Examiner today. This means I am a real writer... right? It only took 47 articles before I reached their payout level, but this is still exciting!
My visa! Yes! Apparently the consulate decided to take pity on me after all of this purgatory AND GRANTED ME MY VISA. I am very, very pleased, as this saves me several more weeks of anguish and stress. Conveniently, they UPSed it to me - I am glad that somebody involved still trusts UPS. But this is great news! I can get on with my life! Time to buy a plane ticket!
Also, I got my first paycheck from The Examiner today. This means I am a real writer... right? It only took 47 articles before I reached their payout level, but this is still exciting!
19 August 2010
quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock
In case you were curious, the Tour De La Bibliothèques is still ongoing. Here is an illustrated guide to my life as a professional reader.
This is what I am researching, explained with dinosaurs and probably much more helpful than my previous post about it:
(from dinosaur comics by ryan north)
I go to Widener every week or so to get copies of articles to read. I look at an on-line catalog, request items, wait for them to arrive, make photocopies of them, return the items, and repeat. Here I am making sure I have all the pages of one article.
During the rest of the week, I come to Wheaton College's library, where I sit in the basement with the history books to read and take notes on my computer. Today I am reading about lying.
That's it! This is what I do every day instead of having an actual job. There's not much to say about being a research assistant. I don't have to get dressed up or anything; I just sort of sit somewhere, listen to music, and read. It's pretty self-explanatory, but I figured it was time to talk about something other than mail fails.
This is what I am researching, explained with dinosaurs and probably much more helpful than my previous post about it:
(from dinosaur comics by ryan north)I go to Widener every week or so to get copies of articles to read. I look at an on-line catalog, request items, wait for them to arrive, make photocopies of them, return the items, and repeat. Here I am making sure I have all the pages of one article.
During the rest of the week, I come to Wheaton College's library, where I sit in the basement with the history books to read and take notes on my computer. Today I am reading about lying.
That's it! This is what I do every day instead of having an actual job. There's not much to say about being a research assistant. I don't have to get dressed up or anything; I just sort of sit somewhere, listen to music, and read. It's pretty self-explanatory, but I figured it was time to talk about something other than mail fails.
18 August 2010
i can't see the future but i know it has big plans for me
A month from today I will be in Scotland, moving into my flat, and about to start my first semester of grad school.
I am terrified, but I know it's where I should be, need to be, and want to be.
I am terrified, but I know it's where I should be, need to be, and want to be.
17 August 2010
Things I Do Not Have III: Revenge of the UPS Guy
(I am sure you are tired of this. I'm sorry. I know I am, especially because I am fairly certain this title series is not getting any funnier. But this blog is about grad school and all things related...and this is certainly related. So here we are. If, somehow, you are missing part 1 and 2, scroll down a bit and start there.)
1. My computer
You guys, I would like to introduce you to someone. I'm writing this on my new computer! It arrived yesterday, which was alarming on the basis that at least UPS can do something right. We got to play the Remember All Your Passwords game for a while, and then we set forth on the arduous task of moving stuff between computers.
It actually wasn't that bad - when we got Beverly back, the nice folks at the computer repair place had taken the liberty of putting my hard drive in an external hard drive casing, so I could access all my files without any difficulty. (Beverly, that dear old gal, was very opinionated. If she decided she did not like what I was doing she would shut down. I bet she would have been jealous of this whole situation.) Obviously I nicknamed that hard drive "Beverly". (For the record I have not named this new computer yet, and it most certainly is not going to be Beverly II. That's just unfairly dooming it.) But I was pleased when I got the following message:
(Yes, I just anthropomorphized my (old) computer and its assorted innards. And you loved it.)
2. My Visa
I mean, we knew this was coming, right? Like, what would be the most unreasonable thing that could happen?
At 9 am yesterday we called UPS for confirmation that transcript had been delivered. Of course if you know anything about situational irony and/or you follow my life very comprehensively, you know what happened: they didn't know where it was. Again.
I am not entirely certain they ever had any idea where it was in the first place - how do you lose a piece of mail TWICE? I called the UK consulate for a flat rate of 3 US dollars per minute and listened to a British robot inform me that "all of our agents are currently assisting other customers" and that "we will answer your call in a few moments" for half an hour. I then e-mailed them (again), and faxed them a letter with everything my emails have said.
So now we are fucked, because in the very eloquent words of the UK Consulate:
If these documents [my UNH transcript] are not received by 13 August 2010 your application will be refused. In addition, if you fail to provide the correct documents as described above, we will assess your application based on what you have provided.
It is now 17 August 2010, which is decidedly not 13 August 2010. Hmm. That's not quite right, is it? I took my extra transcript that I had ordered to keep on file, which was no longer in its sealed envelope because I wanted to make sure it was right before we submitted it - and went down to the post office to express mail it, because it's all we have. Because UPS fucking lost my official sealed transcript, and now I will probably have to reapply, get my transcripts (again, though at least I know for this time), get my biometrics taken again and then we just might be driving ourselves over to the UK consulate in NYC to personally hand all of this to them so it will be filed all before September 18, which is the date that I am moving into my flat in Scotland, come hell or high water. Or bureaucracy parades.
As I am sure you can imagine, I was very proud of myself for not punching the UPS guy in the face when he showed up to deliver my computer later in the day.
3. Plane Tickets
We are not discussing this.
I give up. Here's a picture of the saddest kitten in the world.
I understand, buddy.
EDIT 8/17 1:40 PM!
Guess what came today! That's right, my original UPS shipment from Thursday! Apparently they couldn't read my handwriting, so it was deemed undeliverable. Um. If you insist - this doesn't account for the part where you don't know where it went for three days. Either way I suppose this whole debacle is technically my fault. I know I have terrible handwriting, but this is absurd.
You guys, I would like to introduce you to someone. I'm writing this on my new computer! It arrived yesterday, which was alarming on the basis that at least UPS can do something right. We got to play the Remember All Your Passwords game for a while, and then we set forth on the arduous task of moving stuff between computers.
It actually wasn't that bad - when we got Beverly back, the nice folks at the computer repair place had taken the liberty of putting my hard drive in an external hard drive casing, so I could access all my files without any difficulty. (Beverly, that dear old gal, was very opinionated. If she decided she did not like what I was doing she would shut down. I bet she would have been jealous of this whole situation.) Obviously I nicknamed that hard drive "Beverly". (For the record I have not named this new computer yet, and it most certainly is not going to be Beverly II. That's just unfairly dooming it.) But I was pleased when I got the following message:
(Yes, I just anthropomorphized my (old) computer and its assorted innards. And you loved it.)
2. My Visa
I mean, we knew this was coming, right? Like, what would be the most unreasonable thing that could happen?
At 9 am yesterday we called UPS for confirmation that transcript had been delivered. Of course if you know anything about situational irony and/or you follow my life very comprehensively, you know what happened: they didn't know where it was. Again.
I am not entirely certain they ever had any idea where it was in the first place - how do you lose a piece of mail TWICE? I called the UK consulate for a flat rate of 3 US dollars per minute and listened to a British robot inform me that "all of our agents are currently assisting other customers" and that "we will answer your call in a few moments" for half an hour. I then e-mailed them (again), and faxed them a letter with everything my emails have said.
So now we are fucked, because in the very eloquent words of the UK Consulate:
If these documents [my UNH transcript] are not received by 13 August 2010 your application will be refused. In addition, if you fail to provide the correct documents as described above, we will assess your application based on what you have provided.
It is now 17 August 2010, which is decidedly not 13 August 2010. Hmm. That's not quite right, is it? I took my extra transcript that I had ordered to keep on file, which was no longer in its sealed envelope because I wanted to make sure it was right before we submitted it - and went down to the post office to express mail it, because it's all we have. Because UPS fucking lost my official sealed transcript, and now I will probably have to reapply, get my transcripts (again, though at least I know for this time), get my biometrics taken again and then we just might be driving ourselves over to the UK consulate in NYC to personally hand all of this to them so it will be filed all before September 18, which is the date that I am moving into my flat in Scotland, come hell or high water. Or bureaucracy parades.
As I am sure you can imagine, I was very proud of myself for not punching the UPS guy in the face when he showed up to deliver my computer later in the day.
3. Plane Tickets
We are not discussing this.
I give up. Here's a picture of the saddest kitten in the world.
I understand, buddy.
EDIT 8/17 1:40 PM!
Guess what came today! That's right, my original UPS shipment from Thursday! Apparently they couldn't read my handwriting, so it was deemed undeliverable. Um. If you insist - this doesn't account for the part where you don't know where it went for three days. Either way I suppose this whole debacle is technically my fault. I know I have terrible handwriting, but this is absurd.
14 August 2010
Things I Do Not Have, Redux
1. My computer
Beverly is back! Well, kind of.
As I predicted, she had few problems with her logic board. On macs at least, the video card is part of the logic board. (I might not know everything about computers, like how to program them and build them, but I can recognize what parts are attached to other parts.) Basically the cost of an entirely new logic board + new hard drive as previously installed + LABOR = 1 new computer.
Since computers age in fruit fly years, Beverly was approximately 46821 years old (rough estimate. a fruit fly lifepsan is 10 human days, but then there was division and multiplication, so I made up a number). Rather than pay all that money for repair work on an ancient machine we bought a new computer. Beverly came back to me, a sad pile of metal and wires, soon to be retired forever. RIP Beverly! Have fun crashing in Mac Heaven!
2. My Visa
I mentioned that I needed to get my transcript from UNH to New York City in 7 days in my last post. Remember that I am a generally calm person.
This seemed doable. Okay! TIMELINE TIME.
FRIDAY 08/06 Notification arrives! Request 2 transcripts from UNH; one for my records and one for the British consulate. Remember that the weekend is coming up and the Registrar will probably not deal with it until Monday.
MONDAY 08/09 They have seen my request. If the registrar prints them and puts them in the mail today, they will arrive by Wednesday! It only takes two days for mail to get from MA > NH and NH > MA. Perfect!
WEDNESDAY 08/11 NO TRANSCRIPTS IN THE MAIL; commence panicking (see below). Anticipate the mail being hours late on Thursday, and then still not receiving transcripts. Anticipate not being able to fulfill British Government's demands. Request transcripts for pickup through Blackboard for Thursday.
THURSDAY 08/12: Nervously check the mail every 15 minutes from 9 am onward. (Feel like Dad.) Prepare to drive up to UNH if mail does not arrive by 11 am. Mail arrives at 10:55, with my transcripts; calm the fuck down. Sign envelope, write my application # on it, bring to UPS store to have it overnighted to NYC by Friday 08/13 as requested. Stop worrying! Call off impromptu trip to NH, go to Wheaton to work on research project.
FRIDAY 08/13 Resume panicking! No sign of delivery from UPS. Call UPS, find out they have no idea where my transcript is. They lost track of it somewhere after Shrewsbury, MA. Find out all of this at 4:30 PM! Offices close at 5! UPS guy says he will call back within the hour, as he is going to call ALL OF THE NEW YORK CITY DRIVERS UNTIL HE FINDS IT. UPS guy calls back - it is found but not yet delivered! Hastily e-mail the consulate explaining situation at hand and how it is not my fault.
MONDAY 08/16 UPS promises to have my transcript at British Consulate General by 9 am.
OK! I think we see a problem here. Namely that Monday August 16th is not Friday August 13th. So now I am back to worrying about my visa, because WHAT IF THEY TURN ME DOWN BECAUSE I DID NOT SEND THEM ENOUGH PAPER IN THE FIRST PLACE OH MY GOD. And by the way, it is their fault that I did not send my visa application in earlier. Oh, The Bureaucracy Parade, you are lots of fun!
3. Plane Tickets
As I think you have figured out by now, I still do not have plane tickets, as I am not allowed to buy those without a visa. If I try to do move to Scotland without one, I will eventually become an illegal alien in the UK, and that is generally frowned upon. I am only leaving in FIVE WEEKS. (Plane tickets are already expensive...they are going to be way more expensive than necessary at the rate we are going!)
Beverly is back! Well, kind of.
As I predicted, she had few problems with her logic board. On macs at least, the video card is part of the logic board. (I might not know everything about computers, like how to program them and build them, but I can recognize what parts are attached to other parts.) Basically the cost of an entirely new logic board + new hard drive as previously installed + LABOR = 1 new computer.
Since computers age in fruit fly years, Beverly was approximately 46821 years old (rough estimate. a fruit fly lifepsan is 10 human days, but then there was division and multiplication, so I made up a number). Rather than pay all that money for repair work on an ancient machine we bought a new computer. Beverly came back to me, a sad pile of metal and wires, soon to be retired forever. RIP Beverly! Have fun crashing in Mac Heaven!
2. My Visa
I mentioned that I needed to get my transcript from UNH to New York City in 7 days in my last post. Remember that I am a generally calm person.
This seemed doable. Okay! TIMELINE TIME.
FRIDAY 08/06 Notification arrives! Request 2 transcripts from UNH; one for my records and one for the British consulate. Remember that the weekend is coming up and the Registrar will probably not deal with it until Monday.
MONDAY 08/09 They have seen my request. If the registrar prints them and puts them in the mail today, they will arrive by Wednesday! It only takes two days for mail to get from MA > NH and NH > MA. Perfect!
WEDNESDAY 08/11 NO TRANSCRIPTS IN THE MAIL; commence panicking (see below). Anticipate the mail being hours late on Thursday, and then still not receiving transcripts. Anticipate not being able to fulfill British Government's demands. Request transcripts for pickup through Blackboard for Thursday.
THURSDAY 08/12: Nervously check the mail every 15 minutes from 9 am onward. (Feel like Dad.) Prepare to drive up to UNH if mail does not arrive by 11 am. Mail arrives at 10:55, with my transcripts; calm the fuck down. Sign envelope, write my application # on it, bring to UPS store to have it overnighted to NYC by Friday 08/13 as requested. Stop worrying! Call off impromptu trip to NH, go to Wheaton to work on research project.
FRIDAY 08/13 Resume panicking! No sign of delivery from UPS. Call UPS, find out they have no idea where my transcript is. They lost track of it somewhere after Shrewsbury, MA. Find out all of this at 4:30 PM! Offices close at 5! UPS guy says he will call back within the hour, as he is going to call ALL OF THE NEW YORK CITY DRIVERS UNTIL HE FINDS IT. UPS guy calls back - it is found but not yet delivered! Hastily e-mail the consulate explaining situation at hand and how it is not my fault.
MONDAY 08/16 UPS promises to have my transcript at British Consulate General by 9 am.
OK! I think we see a problem here. Namely that Monday August 16th is not Friday August 13th. So now I am back to worrying about my visa, because WHAT IF THEY TURN ME DOWN BECAUSE I DID NOT SEND THEM ENOUGH PAPER IN THE FIRST PLACE OH MY GOD. And by the way, it is their fault that I did not send my visa application in earlier. Oh, The Bureaucracy Parade, you are lots of fun!
3. Plane Tickets
As I think you have figured out by now, I still do not have plane tickets, as I am not allowed to buy those without a visa. If I try to do move to Scotland without one, I will eventually become an illegal alien in the UK, and that is generally frowned upon. I am only leaving in FIVE WEEKS. (Plane tickets are already expensive...they are going to be way more expensive than necessary at the rate we are going!)
11 August 2010
Things I Do Not Have, A List
1. My computer
I've had my computer for four years (or 438475 years in computer-years). I've had a couple problems with it - but I was also one of the macbook pro early adopters. Macbooks came out in 2006, which is when I was looking to buy a computer for college. So, I have an early model which probably doesn't have all the kinks ironed out. In the past six months, my mac would freeze or black out randomly in the middle of whatever I was doing. I nicknamed my computer Beverly, as she was old and crochety, with a mind of her own. (Plus it made me feel better to yell at something semi-animate: "God dammit, Beverly!") If she decided she didn't like what I was doing, she would shut down on me. It was frustrating, but something I could generally work around. I knew I had to get it fixed before I left for Scotland, but it's not the worst thing. I figured I had a video card problem, based on extensive Google searching.
Finally I took it in to get repaired a little over a week ago. Their solution was to give me a larger hard drive, because I had used too much of it. Too much of my hard drive? If you don't want me to use the space provided, don't give it to me! Anyway, they installed a bigger hard drive and left Beverly alone to her own devices over the weekend to copy my files over. Beverly did not like this and seized the opportunity to freeze again. So, now the computer repair people are trying to replicate the problem organically so they can fix it.
My well-documented hatred of handheld computer things - I barely use my cell phone, don't own an iPod touch and would never dream of owning a blackberry or iphone - means that I am really, really disconnected, more so than usual. I'm using my dad's computer in the meantime. It took me three days to figure out how New Word worked so I could write my column; I still haven't figured out how to save anything. I don't have any of my bookmarks, I don't have stumbleupon, and these computers don't have sound cards so I can't watch youtube. I don't even have wikipedia to look up stuff while I do my research! You guys, I don't know what to do! It is kind of like living in 2003, only with Windows 7. Come back to me, Beverly!
2. My Visa
I submitted a small forest of paper to the UK consulate in New York about two weeks ago, and was informed that there's a 15-day turnaround time for student visas. Last Friday I recieved an email telling me that I needed to submit my UNH transcript by 13 August 2010. This is reasonable, as it was how I got into Strathclyde in the first place. I can't actually get UNH to mail it to NY, because I have to mark a couple things on the envelope so it gets sent to the correct person. I requested my transcript that afternoon, and it has not arrived yet - usually mail to/from UNH takes about two days. It is now August 11th, and I need my transcript to be in their hands by Friday. SO! tomorrow I am driving up to UNH to pick up my transcripts directly from the registrar, overnighting them to NYC, driving back home and hoping this all goes through in time.
3. Plane Tickets
Without my visa, there's no point in searching for plane tickets. I'm not supposed to have tickets until I have my visa; part of the paper forest I had to submit was a proposed itinerary (this means my itinerary has to be approved by The Government.)
I LEAVE IN FIVE WEEKS.
Can you tell that I'm stressed about all of this?
I've had my computer for four years (or 438475 years in computer-years). I've had a couple problems with it - but I was also one of the macbook pro early adopters. Macbooks came out in 2006, which is when I was looking to buy a computer for college. So, I have an early model which probably doesn't have all the kinks ironed out. In the past six months, my mac would freeze or black out randomly in the middle of whatever I was doing. I nicknamed my computer Beverly, as she was old and crochety, with a mind of her own. (Plus it made me feel better to yell at something semi-animate: "God dammit, Beverly!") If she decided she didn't like what I was doing, she would shut down on me. It was frustrating, but something I could generally work around. I knew I had to get it fixed before I left for Scotland, but it's not the worst thing. I figured I had a video card problem, based on extensive Google searching.
Finally I took it in to get repaired a little over a week ago. Their solution was to give me a larger hard drive, because I had used too much of it. Too much of my hard drive? If you don't want me to use the space provided, don't give it to me! Anyway, they installed a bigger hard drive and left Beverly alone to her own devices over the weekend to copy my files over. Beverly did not like this and seized the opportunity to freeze again. So, now the computer repair people are trying to replicate the problem organically so they can fix it.
My well-documented hatred of handheld computer things - I barely use my cell phone, don't own an iPod touch and would never dream of owning a blackberry or iphone - means that I am really, really disconnected, more so than usual. I'm using my dad's computer in the meantime. It took me three days to figure out how New Word worked so I could write my column; I still haven't figured out how to save anything. I don't have any of my bookmarks, I don't have stumbleupon, and these computers don't have sound cards so I can't watch youtube. I don't even have wikipedia to look up stuff while I do my research! You guys, I don't know what to do! It is kind of like living in 2003, only with Windows 7. Come back to me, Beverly!
2. My Visa
I submitted a small forest of paper to the UK consulate in New York about two weeks ago, and was informed that there's a 15-day turnaround time for student visas. Last Friday I recieved an email telling me that I needed to submit my UNH transcript by 13 August 2010. This is reasonable, as it was how I got into Strathclyde in the first place. I can't actually get UNH to mail it to NY, because I have to mark a couple things on the envelope so it gets sent to the correct person. I requested my transcript that afternoon, and it has not arrived yet - usually mail to/from UNH takes about two days. It is now August 11th, and I need my transcript to be in their hands by Friday. SO! tomorrow I am driving up to UNH to pick up my transcripts directly from the registrar, overnighting them to NYC, driving back home and hoping this all goes through in time.
3. Plane Tickets
Without my visa, there's no point in searching for plane tickets. I'm not supposed to have tickets until I have my visa; part of the paper forest I had to submit was a proposed itinerary (this means my itinerary has to be approved by The Government.)
I LEAVE IN FIVE WEEKS.
Can you tell that I'm stressed about all of this?
Ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls
I'm not at Harvard every day. I live about an hour away from Boston by train, and that just gets me into the city. Getting to Harvard once I get to Boston is another half an hour or so on the T. Doing that every day would be unnecessary and expensive. (To go to any other school in Boston is kind of equally as inefficient.) I live at the end of a commuter rail, which therefore makes me "near" Boston. In reality I live in what I call Southern Massachusetts, which is not quite South Shore but not quite central MA either, but somewhere between there. I do live very close to Rhode Island; from my house, I can get there in about 10 minutes.
But I do live near a lot of colleges. Between Providence, Worcester, and Boston there are easily around 40 colleges within an hour of me. I am very bad at working at home - I'm easily distracted and really just want to be left alone when I'm working - so I generally just go to one of these schools and use their libraries. Besides Harvard, I've been to a few other schools in the Tour De La Bibliothèques. One school is in my hometown, offering a BA only in dance; it is not very legitimate. The other is Wheaton College, which is about a half-hour drive from me and a lot more legit. I spent a couple of afternoons at BU, too. Most of the time I work at Wheaton College, because it is probably the closest to me and offers more than one Bachelor's degree.
If you spend enough time on college campuses, you quickly realize that they are all exactly the same. Did you guys go on a million college tours when you were in high school? I did - I think I visited something like 10 or 12 colleges. And at each one, someone very charming and friendly would lead you around: This is the student union. Here is our library, with many books. Here is our gym! That giant pile of construction supplies is going to be our New Science Complex! Here is a dorm, people live here. You could live here, if you come to our AWESOME SCHOOL BECAUSE WE ARE THE BEST. It's all about selling someone on what sets this one school apart from the 83 million other schools you could apply to.
In the Northeast, at least, a college campus seems to be fairly uniform. There's a bunch of brick buildings with some white trim or accent. These are neat and orderly and usually organized in a line of sorts - around a quad, perhaps. There's at least one hypermodern building that looks super out of place, with weird glass and angles. Sometime in the 1960s-1970s, every school had a lot of money to (re)build stuff, so there is a collection of fairly horrible concrete monstrosities somewhere; some of them are a mix of bricks and concrete. There might be a bunch of repurposed houses scattered around.
Does this sound like your campus? Probably. It's kind of comforting, actually, to know that the collegiate experience is pretty much the same everywhere you go. Walking around Wheaton or BU or even Harvard feels exactly the same as walking around UNH. Walking around BU this summer was strange because I felt like I had already gone there for years, even though its citiness had turned me off five years ago. I definitely love the way that UNH is set up, but I think could love the way any campus is set up.
But I do live near a lot of colleges. Between Providence, Worcester, and Boston there are easily around 40 colleges within an hour of me. I am very bad at working at home - I'm easily distracted and really just want to be left alone when I'm working - so I generally just go to one of these schools and use their libraries. Besides Harvard, I've been to a few other schools in the Tour De La Bibliothèques. One school is in my hometown, offering a BA only in dance; it is not very legitimate. The other is Wheaton College, which is about a half-hour drive from me and a lot more legit. I spent a couple of afternoons at BU, too. Most of the time I work at Wheaton College, because it is probably the closest to me and offers more than one Bachelor's degree.
If you spend enough time on college campuses, you quickly realize that they are all exactly the same. Did you guys go on a million college tours when you were in high school? I did - I think I visited something like 10 or 12 colleges. And at each one, someone very charming and friendly would lead you around: This is the student union. Here is our library, with many books. Here is our gym! That giant pile of construction supplies is going to be our New Science Complex! Here is a dorm, people live here. You could live here, if you come to our AWESOME SCHOOL BECAUSE WE ARE THE BEST. It's all about selling someone on what sets this one school apart from the 83 million other schools you could apply to.
In the Northeast, at least, a college campus seems to be fairly uniform. There's a bunch of brick buildings with some white trim or accent. These are neat and orderly and usually organized in a line of sorts - around a quad, perhaps. There's at least one hypermodern building that looks super out of place, with weird glass and angles. Sometime in the 1960s-1970s, every school had a lot of money to (re)build stuff, so there is a collection of fairly horrible concrete monstrosities somewhere; some of them are a mix of bricks and concrete. There might be a bunch of repurposed houses scattered around.
Does this sound like your campus? Probably. It's kind of comforting, actually, to know that the collegiate experience is pretty much the same everywhere you go. Walking around Wheaton or BU or even Harvard feels exactly the same as walking around UNH. Walking around BU this summer was strange because I felt like I had already gone there for years, even though its citiness had turned me off five years ago. I definitely love the way that UNH is set up, but I think could love the way any campus is set up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)