Goodbye to the 'paign

It was not easy getting to the 'paign, let me tell you and here's what I've learned: Delta is a Bastion of Evil. Anyone who is getting rich off of their business ethos of depraved indifference should be shot out of a cannon into the sun. It's a long story but suffice it to say, after wasting my Day Before My Defense waiting out delays due to mechanical failures (ie/ things prevented by a simple system of fleet maintenance) the Devil Company canceled the flight and sent a plane full of disgruntled people off to attain assistance from a "help desk" that consisted of 5 phones. By that time, flying right into Chambana was no longer an option, the closest they could get me (via another carrier) was Chicago, so I had to suck up a night's stay at a hotel near O'Hare, rent a car and fucking drive to the 'paign the day of my defense. 'Cuz I'm hardcore like that. I wouldn't recommend going to a car rental company and just renting a car on the spot because it ended up costing me more than the bloody flight into Chambana in the first place. Delta, you owe me $428 and I don't forget stuff like this. Also, where the hell is my luggage that I paid $26.35 to check? As I type this, my luggage is still lost, ie/ four days after the fact.

Don't fly Delta. I say this not as a plea for vengeance on my behalf but out of general concern for your well being, dear reader: they will fuck you up and there will be nothing you can do about it. Plus, I don't think they regularly service their fleet. In other words, flying with that shiteous airline is like playing Russian Roulette. I should have listened to Eugene Mirman, who also hates Delta airlines and did the artwork shown above. In fact, it is a postcard that he printed out thousands of copies of and sent to the fucktard company after they screwed him over.

But, enough of that.

It might have been that I was tired and weird with worry about the defense but driving into the 'paign was more than a little emotional Thursday morning. I guess I should have expected that - I spent the better part of my 20s there, after all, and I'm certainly not the person I was when my parents drove me down there in '02. But then I got out of the pleasant A/C environment of the rental car and all nostalgia was driven away by the cloying heat of the day. I thought I was going to die in the parking lot. I screamed for help but my cries were lost in the deafening buzz of cicada. It was like some post-apocalyptic scene from an Atwood novel (written by WCFC): things I had forgotten about Chambana in the summertime!

In fact, the cicada sound was one of the first things I remember about arriving in the 'paign all those years ago. Even though you hear them all the time, you rarely see them (unless it's one of *those* years), so when I saw this dead one, I took a picture.


Little cicada,
Did you die
From running into Karen's eye?

See, once a cicada hit Krod in the head/eye, that's why that poem is funny and not creepy. I mean, there's no permanent damage (to Karen), that's why it's funny. Never mind.

Also, I think the town might be engulfed in some kind of biblical plague:


Grasshopper hedonism is one of the signs, right? That's what I learned from Supernatural.

Anyway, the defense went fine. Things I remember from it: I passed, it was hot, I was afraid I had major sweat stains on my back and ass when they asked me to leave the room so they could deliberate, I used the bathroom in Greg Hall even though you aren't allowed to do that because the water is shut off but I thought that GH could owe me this one on the day of my defense and when I flushed this groaning sound echoed through the entire building, the speakerphone didn't work so my advisor had to hold up the receiver for the benefit of the committee member not on this continent, and I stank. Not metaphorically, literally - because of the lack-of-luggage problem (see above) I had no fresh/decent change of clothes to utilize before the defense, so my plane-to-road T-shirt and jeans had to do, and there was no air-conditioning in the building.

Post-defense celebration? Jarling's:


My advisor graciously took me to dinner (I learned later she was dodging a retirement party but I'm confident she would have taken me to dinner anyway) and told me her war stories. Which included a diatribe against her old advisors (how old *are* they?) because they didn't properly (read: barely even) congratulate her on winning a recent major award (it rhymes with Booganlime). Moral of the story: the cycle of advisor-advisee angst never ends unless you set aside therapy time to stop it. I find that comforting and instructive.

Here is a picture of diligent work being done diligently:

The first people I met when I moved to the 'paign were Skinn and Melissa and as I'd already met Skinn (gross) before that means that Melissa was The First Person I Met in the 'Paign and it is awesome and wonderful that she would be the one who bailed me out of my one outfit dilemma by lending me a sky blue shirt ie/ the darkest thing in her closet AND allow me to wear her non-maternity pajamas while she washed my one outfit. Perhaps "awesome" and "wonderful" are not the words she would use for the situation, but alls I can say is, THANK YOU M and J and Ali. Also, the people who sat beside me on the flight back thank you. They (JAM, not airplane people) had me over for best, most relaxing dinner ever and I thank them again because it was exactly the sort of evening I needed and Ali is seriously a crack-up. Bring the fam to Ottawa and I'll cook a brisket! You're welcome anytime!

Here are just a couple of random pics I took while walking to see M at her job. The library:



The oncampus graveyard with football stadium in background.


Oh, Chambana.