Latrinalia- my new favorite term

So I've just had 1 class so far, but I need a reading and job hunting break so blog time!

Latrinalia is an academic term for the writing on bathroom walls. I love folklore!

After my first class I'm feeling excited again about school, I was getting a bit panicky and second guessing my decision over the weekend, but now I'm back to remembering that I do like this program and I am interested in doing my research, so good times! Tomorrow I have an arts and administration class, and I already know 2 people who will be in the class with me which is exciting. And I'm going to add another class as I realized I'm not taking a full load this term, and I'm not on the long-term track, I want to be done in 2 years. So I'm either going to add a folklore and sexuality class or try to see if I can do an independent study Indonesian language thing, either way I've got to figure it out tomorrow morning so I can get going.

I'd kind of forgotten how much work school is. Grad school is way more with the insane amount of reading you have to do. And I forgot how school makes you have this weird schedule and you can't work a normal job with it, so today I went to the strip mall down the street and filled out applications at some retail places, woohoo! We'll see how that goes, man I hate retail but I gotta pay the rent.

p.s.- The picture is of the back deck of the house I'm living in, I love it!

Eugene- bicycles, hippies, friendly people!

I officially moved to Eugene on Sunday, into a house that's about a 20 minute bike ride from campus. I bought an old cruiser style bike from a hippy so I'm all set to join the Eugene bike culture. There's tons of people riding around, and lots of bike lanes and bike paths, so the drivers are used to watching out for you.

My roommates are Margie, the lady who owns the house, and 2 other women who are also grad students. Haven't spent much time with them yet but they seem like nice people so I'm sure living together will work out fine.

I'm nearly mentally prepared to start school, this afternoon I went to the general orientation for all graduate students and to the bookstore to pick up the rest of my textbooks. It feels weird to be on a campus again and I keep saying UW instead of U of O but I'm sure I'll get used to it soon enough. Friday I have the first Folklore departmental meeting followed by a potluck at the park where the picture above was taken, so I'm looking forward to meeting everyone. Due to the magic of Facebook, I already found a new folklore grad student, and we went to orientation together today, so it's nice to already know someone. I'm hoping it won't be too hard to meet some cool people, I only have class twice a week but I'll check out some other stuff around campus.

Eugene is pretty small- while doing errands the past few days I've found that everywhere in Eugene is no more than a 10 minute drive away. If you go more than 15 you're lost. They have several beltline loopdy-loop highways which seems a bit overkill in such a small area, but at least its easy to navigate.

I rode my bike to orientation today and took a bit of a convoluted way to get there but it wasn't back. On my ride home I was debating which way to turn at an intersection when some other bikers came up behind me so I asked for directions, and one was going my way so I got to follow him, so friendly! And nice that bikes are so popular, this will probably help me from getting too twisted as I find my way around the bike paths.

I'm sitting on my back deck right now, gotta take advantage of it while the weather is still nice. Tucker, the younger of the 2 cats here is sitting beside me. I'll write more once school starts- I still have this idea that school isn't going to take up too much of my time, we'll see.

Beach!

Ruth and I went to the Oregon coast for a night, staying in Manzanita. It's one of the smaller of the small towns along the coast, not super touristy like Seaside or Canon Beach, so it was nice. Of course the water up here is freezing so no swimming in the ocean unless you're insane and have a full body wetsuit, but our hotel had a heated pool which was nice. I hadn't been to the Oregon coast in at least 3 maybe 4 years, so I was really excited! The Oregon coast is so beautiful, it nearly makes up for not being able to swim in the water.

It was really foggy Monday morning

View from highway 101














Back there in the gray is the ocean somewhere

Manzanita

Seaside

Haystack Rock

All you Goonies fans, recognize this?