First day of iSchool

OK… maybe the first week, depending on how you look at it. I left Columbus on Monday, January 2^nd, and rolled into Seattle on Wednesday evening at rush hour, my worst weather fears of a northern traverse of the continent largely unrealized. The only difficulties of the road trip were in the first and final hours. I inauspiciously left both of my computers by my chair at home in the early hours of dawn on Monday. When Marguerite called me to tell me, I was two hours out of Columbus, with no choice but to turn the ship around and go back. From there on out, the drive was without incident, though my advice to Seattle newcomers would be to avoid arriving at rush hour (not an easy objective, as evening rush hour in Seattle lasts from about 3 to 8).

I stopped enroute for little but food, fuel, and a cheap night’s sleep, but two roadside attractions in South Dakota were irresistible: the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota (pictured above), and then Wall Drug (which, by coincidence, was within a mile of the midpoint of my trip). You’ve seen the billboards “If billboards don’t work, why are you reading this one?” Well, after dozens of Wall Drug billboards for hundreds of miles, I was unable to resist the offer of free ice water, even in January. And that free bumper sticker… well… don’t leave South Dakota without one!

I had as my companion on the trip an audio book of Anna Karenina. Thirty CDs totaling 38.5 hours. There’s a condensed version… 9 hours shorter… that achieves its brevity simply by collapsing all the character names to single syllables… Ann… Al… Dee… but hey. I had the time, and I wanted the full treatment. This is as painless a way to do Russian literature as I’ve personally experienced. And at about a dollar an hour, hard to beat in terms of cost efficiency. Talk to me about my gently-used copy for your next transcontinental trip.

Settling into my digs (sharing a house on Lake Washington with a professor of Surgery at UW), I rediscovered the joys of grocery-shopping-for-one and appointing my rooms in grad-student-modern (thank you IKEA!). I’ve even fixed a few meals, though that old graduate student standby, beer and popcorn, is both filling and more nutritious than most nutritional experts let on.

Monday morning felt like the first day of third grade. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a first-morning experience, but it was a pleasant one to be sure. The iSchool faculty must certainly have grown faster than any other comparable faculty in the discipline, and the faculty meeting I attended marked the assumption to leadership of Harry Bruce, who is taking over the Deanship from Mike Eisenberg. Mike led the school during its growth from about a dozen faculty to its present size of 40, and they are a diverse and engaging company indeed.

Now, about this rain… on two occasions in 7 days I’ve glimpsed a patch of what I believe was sky, and as I write this the sun is actually peeking through the clouds. Mostly it has simply rained steadily.  The headline in today’s UW Daily reported MUDSLIDE EVACUATES HOUSE. The article indicates it was actually 4 students who evacuated -- A fraternity house rendered unlivable… imagine! The radio tells me it is the rainiest winter since the early 60s. I bet Seattle is a great place to be a roofer.

Nothing profound in any of these observations -- just reflections on the start of my Western Sojourn. Any day now I’ll have profound insights to share. Really. I promise.  In the meantime, where else in the Blogosphere can you find the Corn Palace and Anna Karenina all rolled into one?

PS.  I would be remiss in failing to credit Wes Boomgaarden, preservation officer for The Ohio State University Libraries for clueing me in to the cultural importance of The Corn Palace.  There's a certain wry smile that crosses his face when he's telling you something you can't afford to ignore, and this was one of those admonitions.  Sure glad I listened.