grad school!

Hello from the thriving metropolis of Kent, Ohio!

I'm finally all settled in to my new apartment... basically. I still have a collection of empty picture frames scattered around that need pictures placed in them, but other than that, I'm set for the year. I even cooked a meal on Saturday! That's right, using a STOVE! This is a big deal for me. I actually haven't eaten at a restaurant since my parents took me to Applebee's right before they left last Sunday, except I did cave in and get Chipotle for dinner tonight. It's a short walk from my apartment and I was so sick of my food in my kitchen. Psh, at least I walked.

So far my classes are good. I had to take a test in my online class (which is, coincidentally, a class about how to use a computer) about the basics of a computer. Except that the "basics" were really the first 6 chapters of our book, and even though I consider myself to be fairly computer-literate, I still only got a 69% on the test. Thankfully it was just a practice for our midterm, but if I got a 90% or higher, I wouldn't have had to do the labs for the first 3 classes. Oh well. There was more than one question where I actually had to think back to some of McGee's dialog on NCIS (it was mostly things about hacking) in order to answer. My two classes that are actually in-person are going well so far. I've had a crapton of reading to do so far, especially in my Tuesday class. Our professor had assigned reading for the first week of class but didn't tell us about it ahead of time, so naturally no one was prepared. We also had an assignment on using the search features in various library catalogs online, which sounds simple, but it took me over three hours to do tonight! I really want to do well, and I kept second guessing myself, so I did the work for each question probably 3 or 4 times. I haven't even started on my reading for my Thursday class yet, but I have a much easier time reading shorter articles than I do chapters in a text book. I also have to buy a book for that class that's only available at regular bookstores and not on campus. Which brings me to my next point...

There is literally nothing in Kent. There's not a single bookstore. The closest Border's is 20 minutes away, and the closest Barnes and Noble is 30 minutes away. I'm just grateful that we have a Starbucks and a Chipotle here because the town of Kent is pretty lame. There's a large shopping area two towns to the north that kind of reminds me of the Sawmill Road area in Columbus, but it's still 15 minutes away on a bumpy country road that I guarantee you I will not be driving on once snow falls. When my Mom and I came up here last December to tour the campus, it was snowing and driving the freeways was bad enough, let alone the backroads. But I've found a Target now, and a smattering of grocery stores in the area. I completely understand now why Freshmen are allowed to have cars... there's no other way to get to anything interesting. For that period of time when I wasn't sure if the engine on Gertie would hold out, and I was going to be car-less for grad school, I don't know what I was thinking. You basically have to have a car around here, especially when your closest friends are 40 minutes away.

I haven't really made any friends yet. When I was moving in, another MLIS student who lives in my building offered to help me, but we were almost done, and there are just some offers that you don't take people up on, so I declined. But I haven't seen him since. I've seen people here and there around my building, but the people in 4 person apartments are generally upperclassmen undergrads who are all friends with each other, and I just feel like I don't fit in. Kent's very different from UD in that way. I never had a problem casually chatting to people who lived around me at UD. One day when I was leaving my building, I held the door open for a girl and she looked genuinely shocked! And several times, I assumed that the person either in front of me or coming towards me would hold the door for me and they didn't. My first impression is that people here just aren't as friendly. Tomorrow there's a meeting for one of the MLIS student groups, and I'm hoping that I'll find some people hang out with through that because this is going to be a really long year with no one I can talk to on campus.

Hopefully now that I'm settled and starting to get adjusted to being in classes again, I'll be able to blog more often, but if I disappear again, don't be surprised.

~ Christine