PAgent’s Progress

Another installment of the Long Strange Trip.

I attended a college that was significantly smaller, in terms of the number of students, than my high school had been. To say I had a bit of culture shock upon arriving at the University of Illinois would be a criminal case of understatement. Instead of ~1,200 students, the U of I had something like 35,000. The campus itself was huge, so large that even after four years there would be giant chunks of the university that I would never see.

As you might expect, with an organization that large, the administration had bureaucracy down to a fine art.

The first thing to understand was that as a graduate student, I was neither fish nor fowl. That is, for some purposes, the university considered us students, with all the responsibilities thereof. However, for most purposes, we were considered employees. For the purposes of getting a decent parking place we were students, and therefore at the bottom of the totem pole.

If you were ever at a loss as to whether you should be considered staff or student, the rule of thumb was to ask yourself “which way would it end up screwing me the hardest?” That answer to that question was nearly universally the right one. But I digress.

Desiring a place to park that wasn’t too far from the chemistry buildings, I went to Campus Parking to see what was available. Okay, you needed a sticker in your window just to have your car on campus, and there was a fee for the sticker. Then, I was told that I needed an additional permit to park at metered spaces, for an additional (and non-trivial) fee. I thought it was a good investment, however, since the cost of the permit would in the long run be much cheaper than feeding the meter.

I found out in short order that the permit merely granted you the right to feed the meters. Yes, you needed to purchase a permit in order to PAY for a parking space.

To give you an idea how mercenary the parking system really was, the meters that were situated along the street in front of our building took quarters only, and parking was 25 cents an hour. Classes were, typically, one hour long. So, if you wanted to be on time for your ten o’clock class you would park between five and ten minutes before ten and then run to class. Parking enforcement punctually came down the street at 10:55. It was very lucrative. But again, I digress.

After paying my parking ticket, I was told that the only lot that where I could legally park was WAAYYYY down on the south end of campus. Past all the dorms. Past the cemetery. Past the department of food sciences. In a single giant gravel lot the size of a football field. It would end up taking me longer to walk to our building from the parking lot than it took to drive from my apartment to the lot itself. Not to mention that there were times in the winter that I thought I would die out there, and my body wouldn’t be found until spring.

Administrative follies aside, one of the first actual grad-student-type things we had to do was take a series of tests to determine our level of skill in various areas of chemistry. Not surprisingly, my skills in Thermodynamics and Physical Chemistry were rather poor. I was VERY surprised to find that I knew almost nothing on the Inorganic Chemistry exam, since I had concentrated on Inorganic as an undergraduate. I had been very proud of myself with my shiny new bachelors degree, and I had called myself a chemist, but I was to find out over the next year or two that four years of study in a prestigious college had taught me almost nothing about chemistry, and in fact had only been enough training to serve as a foundation for specialized study. That’s not knocking my undergraduate college, it was a terrific school. It’s just that there’s an enormous amount of knowledge that has to be forced into your head before you can understand what you’re doing on a level deep enough to do original research.

So, my initial class schedule included some remedial classes, ostensibly refreshers, but I was seeing plenty of material for the first time. The standard PhD curriculum plan included two years of classes, teaching undergraduates for a few years, and then a couple of years concentrating on research, culminating with your dissertation. Simple, right?

One of the very first baby steps was joining a research group. This was a crucial decision, on many levels. The advisor you selected would be your boss, your taskmaster, your sounding board, and source of income throughout graduate school. The other students in the group will end up being your peers, your friends, and damn near the only other people you see for four years. Most importantly, if it turned out that you really didn’t like the area of study your group focused on, it was going to be a mighty long graduate program.

Since I had few social skills, I put most of the emphasis on the research aspect, and picked an advisor who was doing some interesting work in synthetic organometallic chemistry. I liked synthesis, and particularly liked the fascinating complexes that could be created using transition metals. Plus, transition metal complexes tended to be extremely colorful, always a bonus. I approached this particular professor, I’ll call him Professor T, and asked if I could join his group. He seemed genuinely happy to have me, as well as the other first-year student who had joined the group that year.

Shortly after making this (momentous) decision, the School of Chemical Sciences held a picnic for the purposes of introducing the new first-year grad students to the department and to the various research groups. Having already made my choice, I stuck pretty close to Professor T and the other students in his research group at the picnic.

One of his students in particular really stuck out. She was kind of stocky, with unruly dark hair framing a narrow face, wearing oversized glasses. She came charging up to us and loudly informed us that she was organizing a volleyball game, and that people NEEDED TO COME PLAY. She was wearing a Purdue University Varsity Crew jacket (clearly a jock) and couldn’t seem to stand still the whole time she was standing there. She kept shifting her weight rhythmically from foot to foot, and bouncing slightly. It was very annoying.

Professor T introduced her as one of his senior graduate students before she bounced off to round up volleyball players. “Great” I thought. “I’m going to have to put up with THAT in the research group.”

If you had told me then that I would eventually end up marrying THAT, I probably would have slit my throat then and there.

Strange Trip continued…

My last day of travel remains a blur in my memory. I remember sitting in a car seat that seemed to have become welded to my frame. I was always soaked with sweat. There was a persistent itch between my shoulder blades that never seemed to go away. In fact, I seemed to have that itch for the better part of the next several years. I suspect some kind of interstate-travel-spawned fungus took up residence in my skin as it pressed up against the soggy upholstery for so many days.

I think I started cackling when I crossed into Wisconsin. I may or may not have started yelling “MOOOOOO!!!” out the window, while making unfair comparisons between Wisconsin dairy products and those from Tillamook, Oregon.

While planning my route through Illinois, I noticed several highways marked “Tollway”. What was this? A highway you had to PAY to use? I’d never seen such a thing. Toll bridges, sure, and the occasional state ferry, but a road that actually charged a toll for access? I was highly suspicious, and resolved to steer clear of these playgrounds of the devil.

Fortunately, I could turn south from Madison and run straight down to Bloomington, then skip east on I-74 to get to Champaign. This provided my first view of Illinois farmland, the giant rectangles of corn and soybeans that extended for mile after mile after mile. The highway occasionally zipped through some tiny little community, but mostly the population density was uniformly even and uniformly thin. The terrain was dead flat, the road was dead straight, and you could have drawn the horizon with a straight-edge. This was the precise opposite of a mountain range. No, the opposite of peaks and hills wasn’t some kind of deep chasm; it was this tabletop topography, this ironing board evenness, that was the antithesis of mountains. I looked at the flat miles speeding by and my soul died a little bit.

Finally, I pulled into Champaign, and kept going. I knew almost nothing about Champaign, except that it was the larger and more commercial of the two sister cities. So, I drove east to Urbana, and checked into a motel off the freeway for the night.

The next morning, local paper in hand, I started looking for a place to live. Time was of the essence, as I couldn’t keep paying for motel rooms, and also because I half-expected to see the rear window of my car smashed in every single morning, with all my earthly belongings missing. Looking at the apartments for rent, I considered my basic criteria for housing:

1. Affordable
2. Quiet
3. Near a grocery store
4. Convenient to campus

If you have spent any time at all on college campuses, you will immediately recognize that nos. 1, 2, and 3 are largely incompatible with no. 4. Knowing myself, especially after my last year of college, I knew that no. 2 would be the most critical for my mental health.

I quickly eliminated every apartment in Champaign. I liked smaller towns, and although the two cities had merged together like lumps of warm Play-Doh, Urbana clearly remained the country cousin of Champaign. I then drew a large circle around the University, and eliminated any apartments within that circle. This definitely limited my options, but that was the point, wasn’t it? I selected the most attractive-sounding apartment out of the remaining ads, and drove out to see it.

The apartment building was located in a residential area of established homes and tall trees. It was one block away from a supermarket, and just down the street from a shopping area with a K-Mart and a video store. The vacant one-bedroom unit was on the third and top floor of the building, on a corner (eliminating the noise from one entire neighbor). The layout was very spare and very cute, and it was furnished with some of the most astonishingly cheap press-board furniture I had ever seen.

And it was quiet. I was on the outskirts of southeast Urbana. It would have been hard to get any further from the University and still remain within the city limits. I’d have to commute to school, sure, but it would be well worth it if I could avoid the kind of noise-induced stress I had experienced while living in the dorms.

I went down to my little Mazda GLC, and pulled the wad of cash out from under the driver’s seat. Sitting down with the building manager, I filled out the paperwork, counted out first and last month’s rent, and a security deposit, and got a key.

It wasn’t a lot of fun carrying everything I owned up two flights of stairs, but my euphoria at being done travelling, my joy at having a place made it quick work. No more motels! No more long days on the highway! I sat on the ugly brown couch, surrounded by boxes of stuff, and sighed.

In nearly every possible way, my journey from Washington state had been a profound transition. I’d left my comfort zone, left every place I’d ever lived, and traveled 2,500 miles to an alien environment. I had a place to live, by myself. Soon, I’d be starting graduate school, in what I had been assured was one of the toughest graduate schools for chemistry in the country.

My long strange trip was just beginning.

To be continued….

Strange Trip continued…

Waking up in Gillette, Wyoming, I was a very long way away from the Pacific Northwest, and any place that I’d called “home” for the last 15 years. I was checking into a different motel room every night, and all I had waiting for me in Illinois was a huge question mark. I think the reality of the situation was starting to get to me.

As was the summer heat. An hour or so after I left Gillette, the radio announced that it was 8:30 am, and 85 degrees in Rapid City, South Dakota. Good God. 85 degrees?? At 8:30 am? My Mazda did not have air conditioning, and since the back of the wagon was packed right up to the back of my head, even opening the windows didn’t produce much of a breeze. I was spending most of each day soaking wet.

But most of all, I think that not having a place that was “mine” was beginning to get to me. I’ve always had strong connections to places. Particularly if it’s someplace I’ve lived for a while, I develop an attachment to the town, the neighborhood, and the house. I mean, I used to get teary packing up my dorm room at the end of a school year.

Now that I’m older and somewhat wiser, I’m convinced that this is a product of my introversion, at least in the Myers-Briggs personality typology sense of introversion.

Introverts need to have a personal space; a place where they can relax, and restore their energy. I think that because an introvert’s home is their refuge from the outside world outside, we can get very emotionally attached. And in my case, I think that NOT having any kind of personal space (apart from sitting behind the wheel) was becoming more and more stressful in itself.

This stress was manifesting itself as a desire to just get the damn trip over with. I wanted to get to Urbana, find someplace to live, and get ON with it. And that’s why, as I drove east on I-90 and saw the distinctive monolith of Devil’s Tower north of me, I didn’t stop to see it. And why I didn’t swing a little bit south once I entered South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore. Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t slow down a little, and see the sights. After all, I may never get another opportunity. But at the time, it seemed REALLY important to just keep moving.

I covered quite a bit of ground that day, crossing all of South Dakota, and getting halfway across the base of Minnesota. When I stopped for the night, it was at some motel off the freeway, I think somewhere near the intersection of I-90 and I-35. I honestly don’t remember.

But I DO remember being completely exhausted, totally overheated, and utterly strung-out. I was tired of this trip, and I wanted it to be over. I’d get to Urbana the next day, or perish in the attempt.

To be continued…

Strange Trip continued…

If you have no idea what this is, it’s an ongoing attempt to record my trip to grad school, and perhaps beyond. Entries are few and far between, and so your patience is appreciated. When last we left our hero, he was in a hotel in Missoula, Montana, wondering exactly what he had gotten himself into.

It was my first morning actually on the road, and things looked better than they had last night. Montana was beautiful country, and I’d already come quite a ways into the state by driving to Missoula. I figured I would jet across the rest of the state in a day. There was only one flaw in this plan.

Montana is big.

I mean, it’s really freakin’ big. In a way that you can’t appreciate looking at a map. You can only truly understand how big Montana is by driving across it, hour after pitiless hour.

Montana also has a low population, which meant for most of those endless miles you were looking at, to put it politely, “rural” areas. There was nothing out there. I began to see highway signs at exits cautioning “No Services for 75 miles.” Or 80, or 120. And remember, I was driving a used car of unknown reliability. The idea that I could break down 50 miles from the nearest gas station was a sobering one.

Montana was also the first place that I saw interstate off-ramps that ended at a dirt road 100 yards from the freeway. That dirt road would typically then arrow off in a dead straight line toward the horizon, or climbing a nearby set of foothills. There were people out there, but they were definitely out of sight.

In fact there was a genuine lack of traffic in Interstate 90. About the only vehicles on the road between towns were long-haul truckers, who were incidentally some of the politest drivers I have ever encountered. They never failed to yield to me when I was entering the highway, and always gave me plenty of room when passing, and consistently thanked me whenever I flashed my lights to indicate they had cleared my little Mazda.

At this time the official speed limit in Montana was 55 mph. The reality, however, was that a speeding ticket amounted to a $5 “energy conservation” fine. Rumour had it that those long-haul truckers kept a stack of $5 bills tucked into the sun visor to expedite traffic stops. But I digress…

After an eternity spent driving under The Big Sky, I reached the turnoff point for I-94. I could have chosen to take the northern route, through North Dakota and on east. Instead I opted to stay on I-90, and turned south into Wyoming.

Now, the drive thus far had been desolate, but still scenic. After entering Wyoming, things started changing. Beautiful forests began to thin, and greens faded to browns. The presence of humanity became even more sparse, to the point that when I stopped at a rest stop I discovered that it was an experimental solar-powered model, because it hadn’t been practical to run electricity that far out.

I reached the city of Gillette, Wyoming as dusk fell. Exhausted, I checked into a motel off the freeway and went looking for a restaurant. As the sun set, all of Gillette looked faded and worn. Everything around me was gray and dusty, and a constant wind blew the dust into my eyes. There was nothing green and growing in sight. It felt completely foreign, like the back side of the moon. It felt like a million miles from anywhere. It felt like the ends of the Earth.

To be continued

Strange Trip continued….

After crossing the width of Washington State, I passed through Spokane and headed into the Idaho panhandle. The strongest memory I have of this area is how incredibly beautiful it was. After the rolling treeless plains of Eastern Washington, entering the Rocky Mountains was like passing into the Promised Land. I keep telling myself I’ll go back someday and really explore the area, but I haven’t yet.

At the time of my pilgramage east, the tiny mining town of Wallace, Idaho had the last stoplight remaining on Interstate 90. It was kind of surreal, after hours and hours of uninterrupted highway to come to an intersection with a traffic light. I dutifully stopped there, and then moved on.

The stoplight isn’t there any more.

It’s in a museum.

Not long after leaving Wallace, I crossed into Montana, having crossed the width of Idaho in a few short hours. I thought that was pretty funny. I wouldn’t be laughing after crossing Montana.

I pulled into Missoula for the night, bringing my first full day of driving to an end, and checked into some little motel.

I was concerned that sitting on my butt for five days and eating nothing but road food was going to have an adverse effect on my health, and my pants size, so I had promised myself to at least attempt to eat healthy dinners. So, when I sat down at the restaurant next to the motel and scanned the menu, I was presented with a bit of a dilemma.

I could pretty much have anything I wanted, as long as it was beef. Steaks, roasts, prime rib, etc., no problem, but I doubt anyone in the place could even spell vegetarian. After looking the menu up and down several times, I ordered a salad. The waitress looked at me.

“What else would you like?” she asked.

“Just a salad.”

She looked confused, but walked off to get my order. Clearly this was not a normal order in this place. I was in beef country, and not eating of the sacred cow was probably a violation of local mores. This would not be the last time that I would find myself adrift among unfamiliar social conventions.

So, I had made it to cattle country. All I had to do next was cross the rest of Montana.

To be continued…

Strange Trip continued….

Washington State is divided by the Cascade Mountain range. On the west side of the mountains, there are thick temperate rain forests, ferns, lichen, and moss aplenty. And rain. Lots of rain. Not necessarily a lot of inches of rain, but a fine drizzle or mist that stretches out for weeks or months. Western Washington is salt water, snow-capped mountains, and rich dark green as far as the eye can see.

I love it. I grew up there.

Eastern Washington State is a beautiful place, but it’s very different from the west side of the Cascade Mountains. The Cascades prevent the majority of the moisture being carried by the prevailing winds from the Pacific Ocean from ever reaching the east side of the state. All that water gets dumped on the way. Also, the Columbia basin is at a higher elevation than the low, overgrown west side of the state. So the east side is hot in the summer, and cold in the winter, and dry.

It’s immediately apparent when you’ve crossed the imaginary line dividing Western Washington from Eastern Washington — the vegetation changes dramatically as you cross the pass. After miles and miles of closely-growing Douglas Fir and thick undergrowth, as you start downhill the trees become Ponderosa Pines, separated by open space carpeted with a thick pad of needles.

After a few more miles, you’ve left the trees far behind you, and you are crossing a rolling brown expanse of grass, or wheat, or sagebrush. It’s not green. It’s not wet. And it’s not mountains.

As I drove east on Interstate 90 from Seattle to Spokane, there could hardly have been a better metaphor for my leaving home and heading into parts unknown. And if crossing the vast grasslands of the Columbia Basin wasn’t alien enough, I was driving a 7-year-old used car that I’d owned maybe two weeks, with no real conception of how reliable it would prove to be. My first car. The first time I would be responsible if something went CLUNK! on the highway, leaving me stranded in the desert.

Oh yes, I was sweating, and it wasn’t simply due to the blast of heat coming through the open windows.

I kept one eye on the gas gauge and the other on the huge dust-devils that kept forming out on the fields. These weren’t the little whirlwinds that might form and scoot across the playground. These were monsters, several stories high, easily big enough to encompass, say, a compact station wagon.

If one headed across the highway, should I try and avoid it? It couldn’t really move the car around, could it? Could it?

What if my car died, and I wasn’t near a phone, and a tornado came and just carried my car away with all my stuff in the back?

Welcome to adulthood. Sucks to be you.