I think I'm in Wisconsin

The first day was interesting. I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to take a red-eye. I think it was to save a few bucks on a hotel for Saturday night. Yesterday was pretty much a blurrrr...... The flight was an hour late leaving PDX so it was one of those connections in Minneapolis/St. Paul where I had to sprint from one terminal to another and barely made the flight. Luckily the second leg wasn't full at all so I got to stretch out on 3 seats and get a little sleep. Unfortunately that flight was only 40 minutes. It must have been a smooth landing, because I didn't wake up until everyone else had pretty much exited the plane.

So on that 40 minutes of sleep I arrived in Milwaukee feeling quite weary. I rented a car and I one of my tasks for the day was to find the local Trader Joes. At 8:30 on a Sunday morning I was praying that it would be open, because I knew there wouldn't be much else open. I headed up the freeway and found TJs and bought water, snacks and essentials. Then I had to figure out how I was going to fill the next 7 hours of the day until I could check into my room.

I left the car in the parking lot and started walking. Much to my delight the TJs is part of a huge new shopping mall--but more like a cute small village with stores on the lower levels and then 3 to 4 stories of offices and apartments. It was perfect since I found a great coffee shop and got my daily latte then I roamed around for awhile, but nothing was going to open until 10:00. There was also a movie theater, but the first showing wasn't until 12:00. So I thought I'd sleep in the car for a while---that didn't work even as tired as I was. Instead I headed for a Target to get a few other things on my list and waste more time and then I headed back to the theater. (Oh, the movie theater was really something. More on the lines of the Living Room Theater in PDX. At first I thought I was walking in to a fancy restaurant which is actually part of it too. The snack counter was like a bar. There are ushers that show you to your huge reclining seats, side tables for food and drinks......really nice!)

Sex in the City was the first movie playing. What luck! Yes, Katie I am sure you are jealous. The movie was better than expected. Part comedy. Part romantic/tragic love story. Oh, and part PORN. I think it is actually the most sexually graphic movie I have ever seen. But, despite that it was pretty good.

Then lets see, I think I drove around a little and then headed up to Concordia. It is actually a pretty short drive--maybe 15 min. north of downtown. Check in was suppose to be from 4 - 7 pm. I was a bit early, but it didn't matter. I probably could have even gotten here earlier--oh well.

I have a regular dorm room. Normally it is a 4 person suite with 2 bedrooms, common room and bathroom, but I have it to myself. But the common room has no furniture--just 2 small refrigerators and a microwave. Then the bedroom has the usual 2 beds, 2 desks, etc. The cinder block white walls are already closing in, but I really won't be in my room much. At least I can fix breakfast & lunch in my room.

The campus is really ugly. Looks like a 1950's sprawling high school. I'll take pictures and explain at another time.

So today I started 2 of my classes. One is on Designing Art Curriculum taught by a Dr. Baker who is probably at least 80. He speaks with long pauses, but seems quite knowledgeable. The class looks like it will be a considerable amount of reading and work...not quite like Nicole's tour of Florence & the surroundings. There are only 9 students in the class.

The other is a Drawing (How to teach Drawing) course, so we will be doing a lot of drawing. 4 hours M - Th and then he expects 1 to 2 hours besides that everyday. So, I will be reading, drawing, writing and studying with little time for much else. Only 4 students in this class.

And that brings you up to date on everything. Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do for dinner and then get busy on my homework.