Megan and Murray McMillan

This is the first week of graduate school for me, and I’m getting the hang of the commute, the parking situation, the crowds, and the challenges of attending a school that is heavily impacted. Because of the state budget cuts, state universities have had to overload classes, and stick to a strict policy of ejecting students and giving their seats away for the slightest infraction. This is not so much the case on the graduate level, where life continues on its academic high horse, but it’s definitely the case for the poor teaming masses of undergrads.

It’s fun being back in school again. I bought a new backpack and some pens that I like to write with. I’m figuring out some of the perks of being a student: very cheap gym membership, for starters, with no contracts, and people handing out free tickets to movie screenings every time I turn around. I have explored this extensive campus in the breaks between my classes, and have found the University Art Museum, the Japanese Gardens, several Starbucks, and my personal mecca: the library — with its high-speed internet access, where I am blogging from right this very minute.

The library also has lots of wondeful periodicals — a better selection than Borders! — and audio-books that I can check out for my half-hour commute to and from campus. And it’s quiet and well air-conditioned and studious-feeling. Very captain, my captain.

Yesterday, students were spread out on the center lawn in the middle of upper campus in what looked like a perfect photo-op for the university marketing department. One guy was lying on his back in the grass, playing guitar. It feels good to be here.

On a side note, the school is divided into upper and lower campus, and east and west campus. I haven’t figured out if something can be both lower and west campus, of if those terms are mutually exclusive. I have figured out that upper campus, where all my classes are, is called that because it is at the top of a big hill. Parking is in lower campus, so it’s quite the hike to get to class every day.

I am taking four classes: French; Western Art Theory and Criticism, Mid-19th century to Mid-20th; History of Museums and Exhibitions; 20th century Art from 1945. So far, I’ve learned how to say my name and where I’m from en francais, and that Victor Hugo was one of the earliest art theorists, and that Frank Lloyd Wright was trying to stick it to artists when he designed the Guggenheim in New York by refusing to put in 90 degree angles where the floor meets the walls, so it’s nearly impossible to exhibit large paintings in the main exhibition space. I think it’s going to be a great semester.