Enjoying the quiet

So here I am, living in a small town in the middle of a rural valley. Not all the students have arrived yet - school does not start yet until a week from today, but I must say the peace and quiet of this town is terrific. I can walk around and across campus so easily, and there are so few cars on the road. I wonder if things will be much different next week? I recall how much nicer summers at ohio state were than during the regular school year just because of the quiet on campus. I think because the town is so small, though, that much of the quiet here will remain. Our student body is also about half the size of ohio state, too, so that helps!

One thing that was WONDERFUL was that Saturday we had the first home football game since I've been here, and I completely forgot about it. It was so quiet in my neighborhood and I didn't see or hear any evidence of a football game all day. I may actually start to appreciate the game under these conditions! At ohio state I lived way too close to campus and the crowds, parties, trash, and noise were horrible. One thing that is the same here as there is that there is no parking on campus during game days unless you're going to the game. Hopefully the weather will be ok enough that I can bike to campus those days if I need to go in. I hope to not work on Saturdays though - at least that is my goal :)

I'm listening to the people at the table next to me complaining about how loud their neighbors are - I am so glad I'm living where I am. So far the only thing I've heard from inside my house is a dog barking.

The weather here seems somewhat unpredictable in the sense that (except for June-Aug) there can be heavy cloud cover on any given day that may or may not burn off from the sun. If it burns off the weather will be great and warm; if it does not, it will be chilly and unpleasant. Today after getting my faculty ID I was shocked to realize that I was squinting when I reemerged from the admin building basement - the sun had actually managed to come out after a 4 day hiatus! At least, so far, the cloud cover has been interesting, and the air at ground level is still fairly clear, so it's not like an overall gray haze that I am used to from ohio winters.