Spring has sprung!

I have to admit to being a little disappointed when I moved to Kansas in mid-January and was greeted by a blizzard. I thought, "I moved pretty far south, I thought winters would be milder!" But someone I met that first week told me that I would be happier in a couple of months when spring arrived earlier than in Michigan. She was right!

February was very wintry, but March in Kansas is more like April in Michigan - many mornings with frost on my windshield, some days early in the month with snow that stuck and piled up, but also many days where it was sunny and 'almost' warm. I went back to Michigan for my spring break week in late March, and had to face lots of snow and single digit temperatures. I wasn't very happy. And it snowed a bit in Kansas the Sunday before I came back. But that was the end of winter in Lawrence!

Spring arrived kind of abruptly. The Sunday after I returned it was 92 degrees! Holy cow! That was an unusual day, record breaking, in fact. But spring had definitely arrived. The next day there were trees in bloom all over town. There are huge trees covered in white blossoms, the red buds are in bloom and the crab apples are in full bud. Daffodils and tulips are blooming on campus and the students are running all over campus in shorts and flip-flops.

Yesterday I walked across campus in the sunshine and students were promoting their clubs and charities with a basketball free throw contest, boys on stationary bikes raising money for the homeless, and various other fun outdoor activities. I almost died laughing when I saw a campus police officer riding down the sidewalk on his segue! (A thoroughly emasculating device!)

I have had a very busy week, since my boss, the lovely Terese, is in Atlanta at a conference. I taught our tutor training class by myself, have had a steady flow of interns in the writing center (along with a plethora of writers), have been doing formal observations, and yesterday I got to spend an entire class period with Sociology Masters and PhD students. That class is on the top floor of the highest building on the hill. The view from up there was stunning! Even more fabulous for me personally was that I spent an hour with my kind of people. It brought me back to the time when I was in my Masters program, all kinds of wonderful people studying all kind of things that I find fascinating.

But as I drove home from campus last night, I was struck by the feeling of being alone more than usual. When I was in Istanbul there was a small and tightly knit group of ex-pats who welcomed me, and kept me from ever feeling like I was alone. In Kansas though, I have arrived into a society of people who already have their very busy, well organized lives well in place. Out side of my work environment, I am not feeling like I have a 'place' here yet. I found myself missing home, my friends and family last night...