As much as I love my job, I love when there is something going on off campus. I wouldn't want this to happen every day, or even a couple times a week, however now and then is a good thing.
Today I had an off campus (off my campus, but on another campus) workshop. As I was driving downtown to the other campus, I saw the masses of offices, condos, and other blocks of cement. I began thinking, "Huh, I live here?!" I live, go to school and work on the outside edges of the metro area. I never really see the sights of our downtown.
It's kind of sad. By forgetting where I live, I don't take advantage of everything the city has to offer. There are museums, gallaries, shops, trails, parks and theaters I have never seen, let alone stepped inside of.
Don't get me wrong, I have done a bit of exploring around here. Yet there is so much more to see and experience! I didn't grow up here. My family used to come here for VACATION! Now I live here and unfortunately have forgotten all the treasures within this metropolitan pocket.
I grew up in a town of 300 people. Yep. You read that correctly. Three hundred people. My graduating high school class was 16. :) And don't even think, "yeah, she just had to get in the car and drive 30 minutes to pick up the latest something or other". Nope. Not even close. The nearest large retail store was a solid 2 hour drive, and in a town populated by 14,000 folks. If we really needed an adventure, we traveled 4 hours to a city of around 130,000.
Now, surrounded by a couple million people, living about 8 hours from where I grew up, I seem take all of the big city luxuries for granted. We have no immediate plans to move far away. Yet why long for a vacation when I have my entire corner of the world to explore!?
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Where do you live? I grew up on Irving and I know exactly what you mean. I almost never went to downtown Dallas when I was going up. There are so many things that I would like to go back and see, now. Try to enjoy it while you can! I am trying to get myself to do the same thing in St. Louis and Kansas City (both only ~1 1/2 hours from me).
ReplyDeleteI totally get what you are saying. When I lived in Austin and had friends visit, I was a horrible tour guide. I was merely "existing" in my tiny 800 sq ft apartment and rarely, if ever ventured off the path from home to work and back home again. Change is a good thing. :)
ReplyDeleteWow, what a change of locale you've been through! LargeUtown is very small, which is a shock after being in a big city for college. Of course, I must admit I'm looking forward to starting my faculty job in August in a VERY VERY small town (although much more than 300 people!).
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