Cartography

I decided today that one thing I enjoy about going to a big school, that I did not get to enjoy at my tiny undergraduate alma mater, is the BUS. More specifically, the campus shuttle.

Holla!!

While I do not exactly enjoy that my parking spot is on the far, far end of campus*, I don't mind the shuttle ride onto the main campus. In fact, I quite enjoy it. It's urban, cosmopolitan, and academic all in one...sort of.

I will also say that in many ways I feel more like a freshman now than I did when I was an actual freshman. Today I was riding on the shuttle with my campus map in my lap. Yes, I've been here for going on four weeks now. But hey! When that shuttle drops you in the middle of campus, it's hard to find another specific building!

Anyway.

So I was sitting there, charting out my walk for once I got dropped off by the shuttle. I bonded with the map for a good two, three minutes. Crowded bus. Plenty of know-how-to-get-around-wouldn't-be-caught-dead-with-a-campus-map undergrads all around me. Do I care? Absolutely not. What I do care about is getting lost on campus. Because it's already happened three or four or five or six times and my feet are threatening to develop blisters. And what for, when I have my handy dandy campus map right here in my backpack?

I've also definitely stopped at those maps on the sidewalks for reference, like the ones you find in parks or malls, i.e. little "You Are Here" placards. Which is another thing we didn't have at my tiny undergrad. Not exactly necessary when you can see all major buildings from where you are currently standing.

One time our freshman year Nick and I were walking across campus, toward the (huge) chapel, and this car slowed to a stop at our side, rolling down the window. "Excuse me, where's the chapel?" Nick and I managed to be polite enough to point straight ahead and wait to laugh until they drove away.

On a tiny campus, that is your map. Two freshman walking back from their game of racquetball.

*by the veterinary school, where I discovered today there is a building called the "Livestock Center," of which the door was propped open today and I looked in to find an arena with a dirt floor to show off livestock! Unfortunately it was not showing any cattle while I was there, but I walked away hoping for a rodeo later this year (student discount?).