As soon as I knew I would be coming to Iowa for grad school, I immediately went in search of any and all songs that mention Iowa in them. Turns out there are quite a few -- an entire CD's worth. Some are obviously better than others, this one by Abi Tapia being one of the better ones.

I decided when I got here that I wanted to have the kind of experience here that would make me cry when it came time to leave. After three years, I've been doing more crying here than ever before (and not in a good way), and I'm itching to move away ASAP in May...it makes me sad. I don't want to go out like that. Maybe it would be better if I stay through the summer and do all the Iowa things I want to do before I go -- like RAGBRAI, for instance. Or an adventure race with Laura. Then again, I should really try to get a job. Wouldn't it be great to be a park ranger in Alaska or Yosemite? What an adventure either of those would be! Even better to have a tenure-track job waiting for me in the fall? Well, I have time to decide. And no job offers yet, so it's not productive to imagine an entire path with any of that on it or worry about decisions that haven't even been presented as choices yet.

But what a wild blue yonder ahead of me, no?