Back in Iowa

Today is our first day back in Iowa, back from our trip to good old "New Hamster." So far, both the preliminary Iowa and the New Hampshire visits are all finished up, but there's still a lot of work to be done.

As everyone else surely noticed, starting a week before class started at the beginning of June, I developed a mean eye infection that isn't quite gone yet for some reason. Hmmmm.... Maybe it had something to do with my prescription eyedrops leaking out into my duffel bag two days into the weeklong New Hampshire trip. It hampered several of my assignments and gave me a rough time for the past month, but I am going to hurry up and get those in before the weekend is over. No worries though, I'm feeling great.

Aside from that, it was overall a great experience for me. I had never been out to the New England area before, much less been on a plane or in an airport for that matter. It was really nice out there, kind of like a miniature Wisconsin with heavier traffic and better mountainclimbing. I didn't get to meet many of the average small townspeople, so I couldn't really get a feel for the local political atmosphere and compare it much with Iowa. I think it was balanced out though by the amount of on-campus activity we participated in with the Presidency and Press organization. Running around a college campus in the summer with a youthful group of the politically obsessed is a potent enough dose of enthusiasm to counteract anything. It was fun; our schedules were full, but I got see some pretty amazing things.

I think my favorite part of the trip was the day at the state house. The furthest East I'd ever been was westside Indiana, so I've never actually gotten to see for myself what the atmosphere of our founding fathers felt like. Walking into that capitol building in Concord, I felt a kind of chill from the portraits, ancient flags, pillars, chambers, and everything else still left over from those special periods of our history. Obviously, American civilization isn't as old in the Midwest as it is on the East Coast, so the ambience of those rooms was totally alien and awe-inspiring to me. When I think of old-school Iowa, it's all Native American history and rich farm country. I love Iowa and its atmosphere, but we don't seem to have many traces of the Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, or George Washington memories and images in our imaginations.

I have to say that I am really impressed with how this whole idea turned out. I wasn't really expecting the challenge and the full extent of commitment required for this project, but I'm definitely not disappointed.