Deep Thoughts about a Burrito

For a few days, I am back in my old stomping grounds of Normal for a guest speaking event at the CTLT, my former place of graduate assistant employment. I am a visiting guest at the Future Professors workshop, an event I used to help facilitate. My job today is to share thoughts on what it means to have completed the transition from graduate student to first-year faculty. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I will say, but it's only for 45 minutes, so I don't think it will be too bad. I'm hoping that the participants will ask some good questions that will lead into a fruitful discussion.

Yesterday when I arrived in town, I treated myself to a burrito at El Porton, one of my favorite places when I used to live here. Sadly though, I discovered that it didn't taste as good as I remembered it, and I couldn't figure out why. It looked the same as it always did though the rice and beans did look a little different. I just couldn't figure out why it tasted somewhat different, less good, than I remembered. As I drove away feeling a little saddened by my lunch experience, I started thinking about life's changes and how much has happened in the past year. After all, it was just one year ago that I was living here (or had just left here) and was wrapping up the past 5 years of my life as a graduate student. In that year, I graduated, moved back to Iowa, started a job, experienced a tornado, got engaged, left a job, started a new better job, got married, and sent a husband off to war...again. Now here I am coming back after all these things happened and for some reason, here I am actually saddened by the fact that a burrito I used to love tasted different. Really significant, right?

In the end, I think it was really just my way of saying good-bye to who I was when I was a graduate student here. Perhaps I have different tastes now or maybe it's just a matter of remembering things in a different way from a different time. I don't know. I guess I'm not being super reflective here about life's changes, but in the end, I think it was just symbolic of moving on. My life as a burrito --now how's that for a metaphor?

South Dakota Pt. 3: Custer State Park and Deadwood

Back to our trip to South Dakota. As we got closer to our destination, we finally began to see buffalo and other wildlife. Surprisingly, there wasn't much of that to see along the way. In Iowa, we're used to seeing cows, pigs, sheep, and horses all around, but in SD, we saw very little evidence of a farming lifestyle.


When we got to Custer State Park, we were impressed by the roaming buffalo that would stand right next to the car and often in the road right in front of the car as well. Ken and I got a kick out of having to stop while a couple of buffalo slowly...and I do emphasize slowly...made their way across the road.While the buffalo didn't really care if we were there or not, we did have a slightly nasty encounter with a roaming donkey that charged up to the passenger side of the car when I leaned out to get a picture. As he started running toward us, I yelled, "Drive!" to Ken and we safely got away. Here is our getaway shot from the frightening encounter. Ken responded to the situation by saying, "What an ass!"

We also made a stop in Deadwood, SD, the place where Wild Bill Hicok was shot and is buried. While there, I picked up a black hills gold necklace as a momento from the trip, and we ventured to Mt. Moriah cemetery to see the graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane. Of course, while walking down through the streets of Deadwood, we saw the Historic Saloon No. 10 where Wild Bill was shot -- as the sign so eloquently states.

We also drove through the surrounding old mining towns of Lead and Spearfish as we explored the area around Mt. Rushmore. Coming next, the visit to "the Heads," aka Mt. Rushmore.

Dark Days at HCC

I'm going to break from our honeymoon South Dakota updates for a moment to share what's been happening around here in terms of my job. In short, things at my work (Hawkeye) have been distressing lately. The problem is that the college is experiencing the recession pretty hard now and because of the reduced funding they will receive from the State this year, have decided to take some drastic measures and reduce the number of faculty and staff. My job seems to be ok for this next year (though I'm still waiting for my contract which should come within the month), but for many of my friends and colleages, the news is not good.

Last week, the college cut 43 teachers -- 1/3 of our teaching staff. This includes 33 Regular Part Time teachers (like an adjunct but they teach 4 guarenteed classes a semester and get partial benefits) and 10 full-time faculty. By contract, the college has to fire all of its RPTs before it can start letting faculty go, and when that happens it usually means the new hires are the first to go. This would have included me, but for some reason, it did not this time (or at least I believe this for now). I think it has to do with who teaches where and how many other teachers there are in that department. I am the only full-time dev. writing teacher, so I think I'm safe for next year...but who really knows? Sadly, several of my friends that I started with this academic year are now faced with no jobs.

There is such a dark feeling around the campus now, and everyone is going to be affected by this. If you didn't lose your job, you feel bad for those who did. If you lost your job, you're wondering what you're going to do now. The sad thing is that the college will still need these teachers, so the question becomes: who will they hire? UNI in Cedar Falls let go of all their adjuncts too, so they may be competing with some of our RPTs for classes. Additionally sad is the fact that the college may try to rehire the fired RPTs as adjuncts and pay them significanlty lower amounts and give them no benefits. Rotten huh? No word on whether they will really do this or not, but that's one of the rumors.

Ken and I have had many discussions lately about what we would do if I lost my job, if not now, in the future. It's very scary to think about this happening to so many people. When it happens to those you work with everyday, it certainly becomes more real and it hurts to see those you care about frightened about the future.

South Dakota Pt. 2: Corn Palace, Wall Drug, and the Badlands

The next day of our trip found us making our way through South Dakota and enjoying all the prairie scenery (what else was there to look at?). On the way, we stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, which, to be honest, was not that great. As we pulled away, we were left wondering why we stopped. The reason: what else was there to do? We checked it out, and I vaguely remembered being there as a 5-year-old with my family. Of course, we had to get a picture.

On we drove to a small town called Reliance where my great grandmother on my mother's side and her sister homesteaded in 1910 and where my great grandfather is buried. We passed through and saw Great Grandpa's gravesite and then a 1-room schoolhouse which we believe is where my grandfather attended school when he lived there. It was really thought-provoking for me to be there, to look around, and to imagine how Great-Grandma and her sister could have left home in Iowa to homestead by themselves on the prairie.

We continued on to a roadside restaurant near Chamberlain where we had our first taste of buffalo when Ken ordered a buffalo burger. Being less adventurous, I stuck with the salad bar, but took a bite of the sandwich. I must confess it was not bad at all and far less greasy than a regular "cow" burger. Then on we went until we stopped at the (in)famous Wall Drug. We barely made it there before they closed, so a quick potty break and a fast look around was all we got from Wall Drug. We decided to stop again on our way home.

Moving on, we finally made it to the Badlands and what a sight! After driving for miles and miles with nothing but open prairie around us, it was such a shock to our systems to see the wonder that is the badlands. They're sort of hard to describe, so I'll let the pictures do the talking.

More to come of our visit in a future blog...

South Dakota Pt. I

After the wedding and a nice Sunday visit with some of Ken's family in from out of state, we packed up the car and got out of town! It's been an unbelievably long semester so far with the wedding planning and students from the underworld for me (Note here that I'm trying to put that nicely -- I have some real doozies this semester). We slowly made our way toward South Dakota and the Black Hills/Mt. Rushmore, but as usual found a couple of good stopping points along the way.

Stop 1: The Beanpod Candle Outlet Store -- Marcy's favorite place to buy her now-favorite soy candles at an exceptionally low price. After stocking up on some good deals, we were back on the road which took us to ....

Stop 2: Clear Lake, IA home of the Surf Ballroom, the last place Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and JP "the Big Bopper" Richardson played in Feb. 1959 before their plane went down a few miles outside of town.

I've been to the Surf Ballroom before, but had always wanted to go to the spot in the corn field where the plane went down. I'd heard there was a memorial there, so off we went to find it. We trudged our way through an extremely muddy March corn field (Hey , where was the frozen ground?). After we were almost there, the ground just became too saturated and I could not go on. By this point my sneakers were coated in mud, but being the neat freak I am, I decided that I just could not walk through the standing water/mud to the memorial. Being the trooper he is, Ken did it for me and got some nice pictures of the memorial. It was strange to think that it was almost exactly 50 years that the plan had crashed in that field killing the three rock legends.

After mudding our way back to the car and trying desperately to clean our shoes off in the lone patch of snow we could find, we got back on the road and headed to....

Stop 3: Sioux Falls, SD. There we decided to go hang at the hotel (Country Inns and and Suites) early, relaxing to a lovely room, comfy bed, and free cookies in the lobby. My idea of a real vacation!

More on the Douth Dakota trip in the next blog. There are too many pictures to post and stories to tell to do it now. It's getting late and I have to start another week tomorrow. More to come soon!

After 8 years...a wedding!

The wedding was beautiful and just the way we wanted it: simple and elegant. The ceremony lasted all of 15 minutes (Lutheran, naturally) and the reception at the ballroom at UNI was lovely. It was so good to see so many of our friends and family there -- many of whom traveled a great deal to be there. Thanks to you all for coming and helping to make our day special!

Here are a couple of pictures from the day shared with me from various friends/relatives who had cameras. If anyone else took pictures, I'd love to have copies! It's so hard not being able to take my own pictures. We'll get the proofs from the photographer in a week or so, but I love the candids that people take.



After the big day, Ken and I headed off for a little mini-honeymoon. Our official honeymoon will be in Hawaii after he comes back from Iraq in 2010, but in the mean time, we both agreed it would be nice to get out of town for a bit. We drove out to South Dakota and visited the Black Hills and Mt. Rushmore. I'll post pictures from that trip in a separate blog.

In short, it was a lovely wedding, reception, and trip afterwards. Now we have the grand task of writing all those Thank Yous. All I can say about that right now is that we're working on them and we will get them out soon!

IA Wedding Shower

Well, with one week to go before the wedding, I find that things are getting a little more rushed in terms of taking care of all that needs to be taken care of. Ken and I did finally get to the Courthouse to get our marriage certificate. His sister Maria came along as our witness. When we signed all the paperwork for that, I had to declare then and there what my name was (is?) going to be after marriage. Rather than keep you all in suspense, I'll just tell you that I'm keeping my name. I realize some people may not agree with that practice and some may think it's just fine. As for me, I decided that keeping my last name was important to me, and Ken didn't really mind, so I'm staying the same. We decided that we'll be just as married whether we share the same last name or not. Of course, when I went back to the Courthouse a few days later to pick up the license, etc., the Clerk had written Ken's last name as the "Bride's Name After Marriage." When I corrected her, she gave me a weird look. I suppose living around here I'll get a few weird looks when Ken and I introduce ourselves with different last names from here on.

A few weeks ago, my sister Melissa threw me a shower in Iowa for my friends and family here. It was a lovely event and it was good to see so many people all together again. We had it at the John Deere Supervisors Club in Waterloo, which had a room big enough to fit everyone in it. Here are some pictures from the day.

This is a picture of the ladies in my immediate family. Back L-R: Sister Melissa, Sister Connie, Brittaney, Mother, Niece Nicole, and Aunt Sheila. Front: Me, Grandma Frieda, Sister Corrina.

Here is a shot of my mom, Aunt Sheila, and some of Mom's co-workers. The woman in red on the right and in the center was actually there working at the hospital the day I was born. She was an OB nurse (and now teaches at the college) and even remembered what room my mom was in when I was born! That made my day!

Here I am posing for a picture with my new set of cookware! It will be so nice having some "good" things at home and to be able to pass along some of our "gently used" items collected during bachelorhood and graduate school days.

Here is simply another shot of the room showing some of the wonderful guests who were able to make it. I wish I could have talked to everyone more, but it's so hard to get a chance to just sit down and catch up with everyone. I know that will be something that's hard for me about the wedding day too, but I am excited for the chance to see everyone and hopefully catch up if only for a little while.

And so there it is. One week from today, Ken and I'll be married. It's hard to imagine that this day is almost here after 8 years and a lot of memories already together.