Some people go to Nepal...

I go to the Midwest. Ah, the excitement of research in far off places!

Okay, so it's not an exciting place. This is the place where Ria called me within a couple of hours of landing at my local airport to ask, "How did you grow up here? There's nothing here!" So true. But I thought blogging would make it more interesting. Or at least it would allow you all to see what I'm up to, should you choose to. I will be somewhat circumspect about my exact location, since I am doing research.

So here's my update: I have been here a week, and my research has yet to start. We have been without power for quite some time, and the high school where I am doing my research was closed for several days last week. I cannot tell you how depressing it is to see the sun go down when you know you can't turn on a lamp, watch tv, or cook food. It was a gloomy week indeed.

But the power eventually came back on (six days later), and I delivered surveys to the high school where I will be doing my research. When I arrived at the school and asked a student working in the counseling office if the head counselor was available, she went to the office and told her that "a parent wanted to see her." Ouch. It made me want to drive straight back home and grab some moisterizer and concealer.

It's been a decent week otherwise. I have been working from a Starbucks and my mother's office. At Starbucks I got into a lengthy conversation with an older man about politics. We agreed on everything except voting (he thought there should be an IQ test to vote, I believe voting should be mandatory for everyone). But he was liberal, which cheered me up. Because I am living in a swing state, and it's depressing. So far I've seen an even number of Obama and McCain bumper stickers. However, my parents' grocery store is selling "charity" ground coffee, where you are supposed to choose to buy either McCain coffee (light roast), Obama coffee (medium roast), or Neither One coffee (dark roast). They give a portion of the sales for each one to a different charity--McCain's is for Veterans, Obama's is for some children's organization (I think). Then they keep count of sales as "votes". So far: McCain 207, Obama 178, Neither 81. Damn. It makes me want to buy coffee.