Good Riddance

A few weeks ago Tiff (of dissertation date fame) asked if I missed Tucson at all, and while I do miss somethings about Tucson, I DO NOT AT ALL miss grad school.  She was pretty surprised that I felt that way.  Another friend from grad school has said the traumatic grad school memories faded really quickly, and while I don't completely cringe when I recall grad school at this point (not quite 6 months out), I still don't miss being a grad student.  Not even the tiniest bit.

Friends who finished a few year ahead of me said I'd miss the flexible schedule and the ability to do work of my choosing.  Honestly I haven't had this problem.  This probably depends upon one's actual job, but I have enough flexibility that things like getting to the post office or the doctor's isn't a problem.  As far as being able to do whatever work interests you, I think this may only be an issue if you actually enjoy research in the first place.  By the end of grad school, I HATED research.  So much of it is so obscure that its only significance is in the mind of the researcher, and I absolutely despised the never-ending nature of research.  I hate that a project is never actually done, even after years - there is always something else to do, some other direction in which to take the research.  I am so glad to have work with a much shorter time frame for completion, and the ability to work on something different often!  If I don't actually like that project, it really doesn't matter, because it's short-lived.  I've written plenty about the crappy aspects of grad school, and frankly the perks (flexibility, ability to work on what you like - which is actually not entirely true) don't come close to making up for them.

The biggest thing I miss about Tucson and grad school are the people.  I miss cooking with E, hiking with Dallas, procrastinating/chit chatting with people in the group downstairs.  I was very lucky to already know a couple of people in/near Baltimore when I moved here, so there are a few people to go explore and hang out and celebrate stuff with, but I still miss my friends from Tucson.  There are a few other, relatively trivial things I miss, but the biggest thing is the people I spent the past 5 years with.  My co-workers at my actual employer are great, I like almost all of them a lot, and the people at BFU are mostly nice though totally insane.  (Seriously, getting out of academia = good decision.)  Anyways, I mostly like the people I work with, but they're not friends the way my grad school classmates were/are, and probably won't be even with time.


Aside from missing friends, the short-term nature of my job (both the actual work and the fact that it's only a 2 year position), the normal hours, and significantly improved salary all contribute to my not missing grad school in the slightest.

Making even harder to miss grad school is actually being able to see Boyfriend more than every 6-8 weeks.  I see him almost every weekend now, and it doesn't involve hundreds of dollars or spending all day on a plane!  It's wonderful.  It (and he) makes me incredibly happy.  That alone makes it hard to miss grad school.

Seven

Make that seven jury duty summons in 10 years.  I got another jury duty summons in the mail yesterday, for the same week as Friday's summons!  This one was for federal court in Tucson.  (Friday's was for Baltimore City County court.)  Obviously I'll be excused from the latest summons as I've moved out of state, but what I don't understand, is how they mailed the summons directly to my Baltimore address, but still think I'm a resident of Pima County in Arizona.  We're not talking mail forwarding by the postal service, this was actually directly addressed to me in Baltimore.  The logic amazes me.  What also amazes (and irritates) me is that even after filling out the juror questionnaire online and responding in about 4 places that I've moved out of state, the system still told me to call in on my assigned date to see if I'm needed.  Totally absurd.

She's still got it.

In an effort to post a bit more, I was looking in my drafts folder to see if there was anything still interesting or useful, and found this Facebook chat that I had with Little Sister shortly after my defense, when I posted a couple photos of me (in doctoral robes) and Boyfriend on Facebook.

Little Sister: damn
that is one sexy dress [yes, this is in reference to my cap and gown]
i really like it
lookin fly
thats a really cute pic of you two

Me: thanks...

Little Sister: those robes
the color [navy]
and the black accents
really working for you

Me: don't look too closely. it's totally obvious that i got zero sleep the night before thanks to the f***ing construction [True story, I lived next to a construction zone and woke up to construction at 4:30 or 5 am every day for the last 4 months I lived in Tucson.  They of course selected the night before commencement to shut down water and work overnight with the use of giant lights.]

Little Sister: oh
no i couldn't tell
no for real though

Me: the dreadful under eye bags are really a shame given the pictures are otherwise really nice

Little Sister: this doctor thing might work out. i decided i'm pretty proud of you and im gonna frae the pic of you in your gown and itll come to college with me. [aw]

Nice, huh?  I thought you could use some classic Little Sister since it's been a while.

• • 
    

E's Bachelorette

E's not really a party girl (anymore), so rather than the penis accessory-filled bar night, several of us had brunch at my place and then headed down to the vineyards in Sonoita for some wine tastings.

I made these blueberry muffins (minus the butter & sugar topping as most of us were/are trying to watch our waistlines), this spinach & cheese strata (no pictures, and I didn't taste it because I don't like eggs, rumor has it it was good though), amaretto-soaked chocolate dipped cherries (do some googling, I didn't follow any one set of instructions), and had way too much fun decorating cookies.  I thought the cookies were super cute, and really fun for a bachelorette without being so vulgar.  At the wineries we really liked we ran back in afterwards to offer them cookies (yes, we drove from one vineyard to another with a container of lingerie cookies), and everybody was super entertained by them.

By the way, I totally recommend Wilhelm Family Vineyards down in Sonoita.  We were fortunate enough to find a Living Social deal, but we had a great time there.  The owner/winemaker is super nice and gives a great tour.  And the wine is tasty - almost all of us took a bottle or two home with us.

P.S.

To those of you who read that last post as one giant paragraph, I'm very sorry.  Blogger on my iPad can't seem to handle even basic formatting such as paragraphs.  It's fixed now.

Shark week started this morning.  Shoot me.  Yay for heightened anxiety.  (Not that I don't think almost everything I just rambled about isn't anxiety-worthy on a normal day.)

The guys from the post doc in northern NJ emailed this morning - their higher ups want assurance that I really will be done by August.  The Queen and I gave them this assurance, along with a summary of my dissertation writing progress and what's left to do.  Since my offer there hinges on this project being funded, I was very, very clear with them when we first started talking about this that I needed to continue looking for other options, and that even if they were funded, if I had a better offer (in terms of money or geography), I'd probably take it.  They were totally ok with this, saying I wouldn't be "screwing them over" if I took something else (their words, no joke).  Though this was when we all thought they had 9 months to fill the post doc upon receiving project approval/funding, but apparently that has changed to 6 months.  And it sounds like they should hear back about their proposal "by May", which for all practical purposes is NOW.  Crap.  The people in Lancaster had better get their act together and realize they should want me.

Oh, the swamp cooler has been serviced and is running for the year.  So there's one thing off the to-do list at least.  My mother would have killed me if she'd come out here for commencement and it weren't running yet.  (Not that it's running and perfect operation will prevent her from whining about the heat.)

Time to find some caffeine and some chocolate.

Sleepless Ramblings

I can't sleep. It's quarter past 3 and I've been wide awake for the past hour and a half.

Aside from the predicted high of only 80 on Thursday, summer has hit in Tucson. We had a record high of 101 on Sunday. Overnight lows are in the 60s, so I suppose at least we're not to the worst of it when it stops cooling off overnight (lows in the 80s, which is still insane to think about after 5 years). But it's mid April, so the swamp cooler isn't on for the summer yet, I'm cold without my sheet, but hot with it, and not yet reacclimated to sleeping with a fan on me.

I've been dieting for the past 2 1/2 months with the help of an app on my iPad. It's actually been going quite well, except Saturday I got fit for my bridesmaid's dress for E's wedding in June, so I can't lose anymore weight before then of the dress won't stay up (the tailor is already taking it in 2+ inches on both sides...whoops...). So I switched the app settings to maintain my current weight, and after working out this morning and playing softball tonight I finished today 775 calories under "goal." After really not eating particularly healthy or skimpy today. I don't want to not work out between now and the wedding because that isn't healthy either and I don't want to lose all my muscle! This is going to take some getting used to... 

The anxiety in the office surrounding the move seems to have at least temporarily calmed as people are over the shock and looking into their various options, but my anxiety just seems to be getting worse. I'm getting more and more worried about my last experiments not working and not having enough (good) data to put on my poster for ASMS or the last chapter of my dissertation. ASMS is going to be a huge time suck between now and May 25th. I kind of wish I weren't going, but I argued my way into going because I was worried I wouldn't have a job by then and then I worked hard to gather more than enough outside travel funding, and got a poster abstract accepted and then had to convince the organizers to reschedule it for another day when it conflicted with Little Sister's high school graduation. So I have to go, and yes this means I'm taking the 5 am flight from Boston to Vancouver the day after graduation.

The whole not having a job yet thing is also a major source of anxiety. There's a potential post doc in northern NJ that looks promising - they've submitted an internal proposal for the project and if they get funded (they think their odds are good) I will have an offer. But the project would be a collaboration with The Queen, and the more the move situation unfolds the more I want to just cut ties and move on completely, and the outskirts of NYC/Newark is really pretty high on my list of places I've never wanted to live. I found a post doc opening actually in Lancaster last week that I am unbelievably perfectly qualified for and obviously applied right away, but I'm nervous I won't hear anything at all back from them (like most of the other jobs I've applied for) or that the salary will be garbage or that it will be another case of a company trying to save themselves $30k by listing a "real" PhD-level job as a post doc (yet another thing I've discovered I have to be wary of when looking at job postings). But speaking of "real job" vs post doc, I'd much rather have a real job than a post doc, but very few people seem to be hiring new grads and most want proteomics expereience, which I don't have and really hate anyways.

Then there's this weird pain in the lower right corner of my mouth. If it's actually something real I'm sure it would be super expensive to fix, and surprise surprise, the student health plan doesn't include dental coverage, and the thought of thousand(s) of dollars of dental expenses when I'm trying to save for a cross-country move and potential unemployment makes me nauseous. Not to mention I HATE the dental practice I've been going to and don't remotely trust 95% of what they tell me. And dental work = through the roof anxiety. Just listening to somebody in the next room getting a filling sets me on edge. I leave every dentist visit drenched in sweat and with achy back and shoulders from clenching my muscles so hard. God I hope my wisdom teeth haven't finally decided to make their presence known.

I'm terrified that between ASMS, mine and Little Sister's graduation schenanigans, and E's wedding (crap, have to figure out bachelorette stuff still) that I'll never finish my dissertation in time. Our group admin is trying to schedule my final seminar and defense for some time in July, because The Queen leaves in early August and I'm not sure I can be done any sooner, but The Queen is going to be out of town for like half of July (and who knows about the rest of my committee members...). On top of worrying that I won't finish in time, my best guess at the moment is that my dissertation will be about 200 pages, which looking at past dissertations out of my group seems inadequate. A friend commented today that she's at 236 pages and not even close to done. I keep telling myself that nobody wants to read even 200 pages of dissertation, never mind 300+ pages, but 200 pages just doesn't seem like it could possibly be representative of 5 years of grad school misery. And I'm quite sure I'd cry on the spot if they told me at my defense that it wasn't going to cut it (never mind that I'm not at all convinced that anybody - including The Queen - will read it and I've never heard of anybody failing their defense here, and my committee seemed satisfied at my 6 month meeting in December).

Great. Now it's 4. You can probably why see I'm having a hard time sleeping. Tomorrow/today is going to be a mess.

Random Funny

I saw this poster taped to a utility box on my way to school a couple of weeks ago.  Apparently it was an actual event.  Too funny.

What I Won't Miss about Tucson

Finding lizards on my closet.  I HATE all things creepy crawly.  Hate them.  I asked (begged) my dad to get spiders and such out of my room until the day I left for college.  I tried to scoop this guy into my soup pot to get it outside...and wound up knocking it on the floor instead, and then it promptly crawled in my closet. :(

I almost decided not to take a shower that morning.  Seriously.  I should have just decided to be kinda dirty that day.  I never would have walked by that closet and never would have seen the lizard.  I thought about just leaving it there, but I had very little faith in it finding its way out of my house before dying or leaving lizard babies in my closet and without making a pit stop in my bed while I was sleeping.

Seeing as I now live 2700 miles from my father, I convinced my friend Cliff to walk over from campus to get the lizard OUT OF MY CLOSET.  I am NOT going to miss all the gigantic creepy crawly things in the desert.

Wide Angle Seven Falls

The weekend before last Boyfriend and I hiked Seven Falls with his cousin and his wife.  I took my wide angle lens (10-20 mm) with me.  I had a UV filter on it, but I didn't bring the hood that came with the lens.  Many of the photos I took were blown out with lots of sun flare.  Lesson learned, take the hood.  Here are some of the better shots - all wide angle, except for a couple old shots with my point and shoot or my D90 with my regular lens (18-105 mm) for comparison at the end.  I don't have the clearest examples of it here, but it's amazing what a difference 8 mm makes.

Comparison, the rocks on the right are the same, and can help orient: 

D90, 18 mm

D90, 10 mm

Another comparison:

Point and shoot. Vertically obviously.

D90, 10 mm

D90, 10 mm

Little Sister Does Tucson

Little Sister arrived in Tucson yesterday afternoon for an entire 5 days of ridiculousness. She's been saying one hilarious thing after another. So much that I can't keep track to remember even half of it.


When she exited the secure area of the airport, i.e. we haven't even left the airport yet, I overhear her on the phone with Dad telling him how much she misses grass already.

The very first thing she did upon exiting the airport was hug a cactus:


She was astounded by how big a lot of them are. Somewhere she got the idea that cacti were fairly short...


From the airport we went to a local taco joint in South Tucson so Little Sister could have her first "real" taco. She loves tacos, and they're one of only a few meals that she can make herself, but she's only ever had gringo, Ortega grocery store kit or Taco Bell "tacos." She liked them, but found her nose starting to run and her tongue on fire from the "hot" salsa. It was spicy compared to most stuff you can find in New England, but wasn't much compared to a lot of salsas you find around here. Now those will make your nose run. She decided that it was the "most ghetto" place she's ever eaten. And seeing as it was a taco joint in South Tucson, she's probably right.


After some food we went to campus so a few friends could meet her (after all, she's pretty hilarious, and I do talk about her quite a bit) and so she could start to get the lay of the land. One of the first years asked, "Are you twins?!" Uh, not quite. Two minutes later E's advisor said in his usual total deadpan, "You don't look anything alike. Not at all." Dallas said we're "like the same person," mostly based on us being about the same height. And then she simultaneously offended and charmed the die-hard Yankees fan with her Red Sox cap.


Driving back from buying roller derby tickets for Saturday she noticed that the fire hydrants are all silver.

Little Sister: ANNE, did you notice that the fire hydrants are all silver?
Me: Uh, no.
Little Sister: What?! You've been here 4 years and you never noticed that???
Me: Uh, no.
Little Sister: No wonder it took you 3 years to notice that the hall is narrower at one end than the other [true story]. The color of the fire hydrants is like the 6th most important thing to notice in a city.
Me (interrupting): OH really now? What are the other 5 things??
Little Sister: Well uh...
Me: No really, what are the other 5 things??
Little Sister: Well, I'd have to think about it.
Me: That's ok. Think about it.
Little Sister: Um, first the size of the street signs; second, the color of the street signs; third, the arrangement of the traffic lights; fourth, um, the closest Starbucks; and fifth, something about the sidewalks. Like if they exist or not...
Me: Uh huh...

She has since asked most of my friends if they know what color the fire hydrants are in Tucson.


Before we went to walk down 4th Ave, where a bunch of shops and cafes are:

"I'm bringing my camera, for all the beautiful Tucson sites that need documenting."

Good...because I'm bringing mine in case (when) you do something silly.

While on 4th Ave, we found these redneck wine glasses:

Little Sister: Oh, it's a goblet of the Lord.
Then I see the tag on them saying they're "redneck wine glasses."
Little Sister: Wait, so they're saying the Lord is a redneck because that's what he serves his wine in??

I also found this awesome sparkly blue dress:

Wouldn't this make a great bridesmaid dress for E's wedding? I sent her pictures just in case she thought so too. :P


Once we were home for the night, she was checking her email on my computer. Now I have my cursor on the "dinosaur scheme" because it amuses me. Apparently it amuses her too:

"I love when your little dinosaur tries to walk because his legs are so little."

While in control of my computer she took over a gchat convo with my boyfriend:

me: omg [Little Sister] keeps saying so much ridiculous stuff that i can't even keep track of half of it

when she walked out of the airport terminal the first thing she did was hug a cactus

Boyfriend: hehe

how is she liking the 100 degree weather?

me: it's HORRIBLE

literally i always feel slightly moist

and if you're not outside you're inside

and everywhere inside is wicked over air conditioned

so then its more like vancouver in december instead of tucson

Boyfriend: so if you're not outside you're inside, how profound. :)

How are you doing [Little Sister]?

me: i've always been profound

its a strong point

Boyfriend: haha

me: i'm contemplating majoring in philosophy...following the footsteps of big bruddah [who majored in philosophy and is now marginally employed and living with our parents]

Later in the evening, I'm telling her about this weird leprosy-rash thing I've got going on, that apparently I just have to wait out. She's into biology, so she's googling to try to figure out why a rash would be a reasonable immune response - like why does it happen or what purpose does it serve? In her googling she's reading various bits aloud, and keeps pronouncing the word "dermatitis" as "derma-tit-us" (with a short i, to be clear), and laughing uncontrollably. I totally think she's mispronouncing it deliberately. But then as she's reading she's like wait, so it's like a skin-itis...so it's probably pronounced "dermatitis" (with a long i). We're both in tears laughing at this point. I just can't believe she was actually earnestly pronouncing it "derma-tit-us"...


All afternoon and evening she kept remarking on the time difference. She'd look at her watch when it was say 7:30, and be like oh my goodness, did you know it's 10:30 at home?? Everyone at home is doing 10:30 things, but we're doing 7:30 things, AND it's light out here but it's dark out there...


She's entertained and entertaining. Tucson is really, really different from anywhere she's been before, and she clearly thinks it's a really strange place. We'll have to see what the rest of the weekend holds in store... Maybe we should find some javelinas to really weird her out. :)

Uf.

I do remember thinking last summer didn't feel so bad, and assuming I had finally adapted to the desert heat. Now I'm thinking it was actually a cooler-than-average summer, because it feels really flipping hot out now...

Escape

Looks like I'm leaving Tucson just in time...



Tomorrow...well, this afternoon I head to Denver for ASMS (see last year's recap here and here) til next Thursday night when I head back to PA to see the boy again (yay! finally!). Have a good weekend!

It's here.

Our first 100 degree day of the year... I won't complain (yet) though - this seems later than usual...

One Day Experiment

So I've mentioned considering switching my schedule to night shift, just for the next few weeks until the conference at the beginning of June. I'd been thinking arrive at work early-mid afternoon, and work til maybe 2 or 3 am, so I'd still have some face-time with people, and be in bed well before sunrise. There would be a lot of benefits and disadvantages, and since I like (ok, love) lists, we'll consider these in list form. :)

Pros to working some form of night shift:

• Pretty much as much instrument time as I want (more than I could actually use due to time necessary for data analysis)
• More uninterrupted work time (i.e. fewer people asking me to fix their problems)

Cons to working night shift:

• I am most definitely not a late-night person.
• I'd pretty much never eat fresh-made dinner.
• Miscellaneous daytime stuff that requires me to be at school early-ish. Starting with group meeting at noon on Wednesdays. Then add in all the random one-time things.
• Half the fun of grad school is the socializing
• Harder to interact with other people that I actually need/want to interact with, especially my collaborator who is now on the east coast.

I decided to give this a try this week and see how it went. So yesterday I slept in a little (til 8), figuring I'd take my time, go for a run, and be at school around noon. Well, Day 1, and I already knew this isn't going to work, at least for the summer.

I didn't think about the fact that by mid-morning, it's already too hot out to run outside. I HATE running indoors/on a treadmill, and I just don't get as good a workout with other (indoor) forms of cardio. By this time of year in Tucson, you really have to run before about 8 or a bit after dark. But if I'm working nights, I'd still be at work at 9 or 10 pm when it's cool enough to run outside again. And I'm not ok with running at 2 am.

Also, when I get up early to run (6 or 7...or sometimes earlier at the absolute hottest part of the year), I'm not hungry yet and can run without eating breakfast no problem. However...by 8 or 9 I'm hungry. And as I found out this morning, I do not have the energy to work out on that empty of a stomach. And eating shortly before running leaves usually makes me feel sick. Especially anything with milk. Ick.

Working out is not something I'm willing to give up, or relegate to once/week. I don't have a body type that allows me to maintain my weight without a fair amount of effort, I love good food too much to "diet," and I aside from appearances/weight, I feel better when I work out fairly regularly. So, since giving up working out is not an option, I'm gonna go head and consider this experiment a FAIL.

San Xavier

Sunday morning me, E, and J went down to San Xavier for Palm Sunday mass, knocking one item off my bucket list, which seems to be growing longer faster than it's getting shorter...

So I know I was partly there for touristy reasons, but I was absolutely appalled by the number of people who would just wander in to look at the church during mass! It didn't help that the interior of the church is really quite small, and was already full to standing-room only of people who actually wanted to attend mass. If you're going to a church strictly for sight-seeing purposes, why on earth would you go on a Sunday morning?? There were literally people streaming into the church during the recessional - like before mass is actually over and before people at the mass could leave. It was so strange. Stupid people. Yes, I wanted to see the mission itself, but we stood quietly in the back during mass (the whole mass), and then took a quick walk through the rest of the church after mass, being sure to get out well before the next mass started.

Anyways, the church is beautiful. The crisp whiteness of the outside seems a bit out of place in the barren, brown desert (though the mission does have a decent size farm with beautiful green fields!), but it's really pretty against the bright blue sky. And the intricate woodwork inside the church is really astounding.

(Jesus/Joseph? with his dollar bills cracks me up.)

Tucson/Arizona Bucket List

Stuff to do while I still live in Tucson:

• Botanical Gardens
• Titan Missile Museum
• Roller Derby
• Sunset at Gates Pass
• Reid Park Zoo
• Go to the market and mass at San Xavier - rumor has it the Indian fry bread is amazing
• Tucson Rodeo
• Rodeo Parade
• Organ Pipe National Monument
• Pima Air & Space Museum - I've been holding out for Dad to make another pit stop in Tucson, but I'm not sure it's going to happen
• View the Ansel Adams collection at U of A
• Camp on Mount Lemmon
• Hike the Grand Canyon rim to rim
• Havasupai
• Canyon de Chelly National Monument
• Monument Valley
• Chiricahua National Monument
• Petrified Forest
• Sycamore Canyon
• Tour Kitt Peak Observatory
• Mexico
• Montezuma's Castle National Monument

Stuff that would be on the bucket list if I hadn't already done it:

• Dinner & margaritas at Cafe Poca Cosa - pricey, but freaking delicious
• Dia de los Muertos parade
• Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum
• Eat a Sonoran hot dog
• Hike Seven Falls
• Picacho Peak
• Baseball at Hi-Corbett Field
• Center for Creative Photography
• Saguaro National Park
• Breakfast at Hotel Congress
• Night hike to Romero Pools

2 more days...

Two more days until this abstract is submitted. I can do it. Just 2 more days. And then I can go back to a normal level of busy for a few months.

I'll spare you a full-on list of random ways to kill time between spectra, as tonight it'll be shorter and less interesting (literature searching, an episode of Teen Mom 2, abstract drafting, convincing a 2nd year that life really does get better post-oral despite the late nights I'm pulling now, data analyzing, and more capillary pulling) since I'm determined to get home and to bed at a "reasonable" time (that will probably still technically be tomorrow).

In other news, it's FREEZING in Tucson. Holy crap. I swear it hasn't been this cold in the 3 1/2 years I've lived here. Today was the first time I wore a winter coat out during the day. We didn't hit 40 today, and probably won't tomorrow either. We spent most of today in the 30s with a wind chill about 10 degrees colder. Definitely not looking forward to the 20 degree low (plus that annoying wind chill) by time I finally get out of here tonight...

Two more days...

Nuts

The atmosphere on campus yesterday before the memorial service for the victims of the horrible shooting on Saturday was surreal. I didn't really see much of it until late afternoon after I got out of group meeting, but it was bizarrely jovial. As if thousands of people were coming to campus for a massive party. I get that a lot of people wanted to see Obama. Hell, I would have gone if I could have. But don't you think you should feel at least a little bit sad going to an event like that? A chance to see a president I actually like within walking distance of home? I don't think a desire to see the president and sadness at such horrific violence have to be mutually exclusive, but holy cow. Walking across campus you would have never guessed that 6 innocent people just lost their lives and over a dozen others wounded.

Fortunately my friends who did get to go to the event said that the attitude was a lot more "appropriate" inside the arena. Watching it on TV, it was strange to hear the very somber tone of the broadcasters after walking through campus. Despite the broadcasters a lot of it seemed much more pep-rally-ish than memorial-service-ish, but Obama gave a great speech. And even Jan Brewer (whom I otherwise really dislike) was good.

The line to get into the McHale Center for the memorial service yesterday was hands-down the craziest line I've ever seen. The arena only seats 14,000. The line stretched away from the arena across campus in multiple directions.

The end of a line that is at least 3/4 of a mile long.


People waiting.

More people waiting...

Some more people. Working my way down the street...

A little closer...

Oh, it's after 4 now (and still 2 hours before the service began) - lines are moving!

Looking back towards the end of the line. The end was alllll the way at the end of this street.

Where that same line curved, just to my left of the previous photo. Lots and lots more people. Still probably less than halfway up this line. At the end of this block the line turned left, and wrapped around the football stadium...

In the middle of campus now, looking south towards the football stadium.

Same spot, looking north. People as far as you can see and farther still.

All the media satellites at the end of the mall


This paper chain making idea reminded me very much of high school. All-girls Catholic high schools, or mine at least, seem to be very in to this sort of symbolic thing. But it was nice. And the lengths made in children's classes and brought to campus were sweet.