My life in South Bend

I am temporarily putting aside my idealistic notions of what a blog should be (coherent, nicely edited writing on interesting topics) to simply update everyone on my life South Bend. This has been a long time coming, sorry folks. (I have also put two "real" blog entries on hold to type this, so look for those soon). Now my only problem is where to start.

I have been living for the past few weeks in a cute two story house in South Bend. Brandy lives there all the time. She is a third year sociology grad student. Her roommate was out of town for the summer, so I came in and took over for a month. They have two miniature dogs and two cats, so it's lucky I'm not allergic to animals. Brandy has been a fantastic roommate (or should I say housemate, since we don't share a room, jsut a house?). Really, I should say that Brandy has been a wonderful hostess. She has taken me out with her friends many times, introduced me to people, shown me around South Bend, hung out with me, given me advice on the sociology program, and introduced me to one of my new favorite TV shows ever: Six Feet Under.

At school, I have a super fly office on the eighth floor, looking out onto the Golden Dome that is a well known feature of the Notre Dame campus. The office I am in is practically a palace compared to the dungeon I spent the summer working in. I spend many hours in my office. I work on papers, read articles and books, type up summaries, research faculty who study race and religion, analyze data... not to mention read email, keep up on the news from the Olympics, and update this very blog. My office is my little piece of the world, it feels like.

My office is officially the graduate student office of the DuBois Center for the Advanced Study of Race and Religion. This is the center that Dr. Michael Emerson (my advisor) has just recently founded. His office is next to mine. On the other side of me is the office of our grant coordinator, a nice lady named Donna who just started today. Two doors down is Bernadette: a cute Hispanic girl who just moved here from Fort Worth and who is the secretary for our center. I love Bernadette, and I especially feel I can relate to her because we are both young (in the midst of many older secretaries and faculty members who are housed on our floor), and we both just moved here from Texas, knowing no one else around.

I have been doing various things here. I don't know whether to call my office "work" or "school" because I do a combination of both. My work for the center is often related to my school work, and they feed off each other. Things I study for school always help for work, and things I do for work are handy for my papers and studying. Recently, I have been putting together a database of questions asked about race (on any survey ever) and figuring out what questions I would like to see included on our big panel study to start in the fall. I will have to start my schoolwork in earnest tomorrow, when our classes start.

I have always called Dr. Emerson "Dr. E", but now I'm supposed to call him "Michael" since I'm in grad school (grad students all call professors by their first name. Probably because when we finish the program we are "colleagues" instead of professor/student). I find it super weird still, but here goes. It's great having an office right next to Michael. He is so helpful and always ready to answer questions or help figure out problems from analyzing data to choosing classes. I couldn't ask for a better advisor or set-up.

Last week I spent several days in San Francisco for the annual American Sociological Association conference. Imagine 5,000 sociologists going to hundreds of meetings, discussing research ideas, networking, and seeing old friends from grad school. It was a little overwhelming but a lot of fun. I went to several presentations, some about research, some discussions/debates, some on how to finish grad school or write grant proposals. Most all of them I found to be interesting, though after awhile it felt like my head might explode from so much sociology. I also had a very fun time visiting with friends. Some people I met while visiting grad schools last year were there, and it was nice to see them. We watched the Olympics, hung out with people, rode the cablecars and had dinner on the Wharf. I also got a chance to see a friend from high school who was in town, and we hiked arond quite a bit of San Francisco.
I love San Francisco. When I got on the BART (subway/train) from the airport to go to my hotel, I felt what can only be described as relief in the diverse bunch of people in the train with me. It felt like I was coming home: being back in a big city, with loads of people of different races and backgrounds all around. (South Bend is mostly biracial white/black, and at Notre Dame I see mostly white). San Fran also has tons of diverse neighborhoods, and I loved being there.

I also got to see Hannah (entry 1 Hannah) in Chicago for a day over the weekend. She was in town a few days before she started training with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, and so I stayed with her and her college roommate (who I know from my visits to Chicago and her visits to PA). We spent a lot of time yarn shopping (Hannah just took up knitting) all over Chicago. A highlight of the trip was Friday night going to Twisted Spoke, a "family biker bar" that I have heard a lot about. The South Shore Line train from South Bend has a stop right in Hyde Park, and I decided I could definitely live in Hyde Park some day. Hannah told me it's one of the few neighborhoods welcoming to interracial families in all of Chicago.

My life here is so different than it was for the summer. I come to work, and I love my work, and stay there long hours. Sadly, I haven't cooked much, but I plan to take that up again. I miss my house from the summer a lot with such a great kitchen. I have watched so much TV recently (catching up on seasons 1 and 2 of Six Feet Under), something I did almost none of this summer! I am still working at making friends, meeting people, and finding a church, so there is not tons of time hanging out with people that so characterized my summer.
The first week or two I got into a funk at least once a day, and I wanted to jump in my car and drive back to Houston. Eventually I'd snap out of the funk and the lump in my throat would go away. Lately, I haven't had funks so much. I miss everyone and everything so much, but I have adjusted some to my new quieter life. I'm pretty busy with work, and that has helped. And sometimes I'm just too tired from missing people to be sad about it.

I met the rest of my cohort (what they call our group of incoming sociology grad students), and they seem nice enough. I also need to move into my real apartment, where I'll be for the rest of the year. I have taken most of my stuff there, but haven't unpacked or really moved in yet. I'll do that this week, I suppose.

Hopefully this is update enough on my life here. I know this was long, sorry I have hardly posted for two weeks! And if you are reading this, I probably miss you a whole lot. I'm sorry if I haven't returned your calls. (Sometimes I'm busy, and sometimes I'm worried I'll just start crying from missing you.) Thanks again for everything.