We're not in Kansas anymore...

Here's the post that inspired me to start a weblog. It was originally formulated as a letter to Colleen. So Colleenie, if you're reading this, stop! The slightly extended version will come in the mail. Otherwise beware of extreme redundancy.
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I'm beginning to decide that Davis is a very strange school. I'm noticing weird things, mostly because I am deprived of an office/desk for another couple weeks. So I roam around campus looking for places to lurk between classes. This morning I went to the library. My first time =). First I found a reading room, but it was way too depressing for my studies. It consisted entirely of rows of tables and chairs in a sterile atmosphere. The tables on one half of the room were populated with computers. Good to know if I were an undergrad, I guess, but unnecessary to me since my adviser's lab has many computers available for my use. So I continued on.

Skirting the library, I managed to find the main entrance. This was ornamented with a sculpture of a large, egg shaped, disembodied head resting face down upon an equally large open book. Not very heartening. In fact, I observed several students in the library assuming this same posture, but their heads were still attached to their bodies (there's only been one week of classes, after all...). I did not suffer from this fate. I found a nice windowsill in the Biology stacks overlooking the courtyard and a nice old oak tree and took up residence. Everyone else studying in the library looked like an undergrad. Not surprising, I caught myself thinking, since if I were a grad student I wouldn't study in the library either. Wait a second... (Apparently I'm still getting used to my new status.)

Incidentally, the statue ouside the library is of the same style, and presumably by the same artist as one along the promenade to the main administrative building. This one depicts an upside down head juxtaposed with a screw inserted in the earth. (So instead of a Phillips head or flat head, it's a head head screw.) Yes. The Bursar's Office will screw you into the ground. Symbolism is rampant on this campus!

From the library I adjourned to the Quad for lunch. That's another strange thing. The Quad here is just a big, grassy field in the middle of campus. But it gets even stranger. Set up on the Quad were at least 4 big, inflated things. One seemed to be some sort of obstacle course and another was a platform for giant Q-tip jousting, like in American Gladiators (you know you watched it). I couldn't tell what the other things were. I think this event, whatever it was, was sponsered by an athletic group, but as it was a windy day, their sign was blown over and they remain anonymous.

Now, if you ask me, that's strange. But that's not it! This was not an isolated incident. Last week the Environmental Science and Policy department was having a mini-carnival to seduce majors. It was complete with a bouncy castle and sno-cones. I got free popcorn out of it! I guess they think I look like not only an undergrad, but an undeclared underclassman at that.... Not too surprising I suppose. I am the youngest person in my program... And, much to my chagrin, will probably remain one of the youngest for the next 2-3 years... Oy
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So those were the highlights of my day. That and the fact that I won a major victory with my adviser. Today she actually started calling me Meg instead of my horrible, stuffy old given name. Huzzah!