One Week in State College, PA (a report card)

Today marks my eighth full day in State College, so I think it's about time for a report card detailing my preliminary impressions.  Here is a list of ten things that have been particularly striking to me over the past week, along with what I think of them, in case you care.  (And if you're reading my blog, it seems like you might actually care what I think about things, for some reason.)


Population density.  My first inclination is to just say A-freaking-plus and be done with it.  Don't get me wrong.  I love Berkeley, very much.  But I can't help but feel how much more at peace I am here, and it's definitely due to the relative lack of people.  There's just fewer people here, and less noise, and more space, and it is so nice.  I live in a beautiful neighborhood, with tall leafy trees and big yards where families can run around and play.  There are many nice things about living in a relatively urban area, for sure.  But I think a place like this is really the place for me.  The downside, of course, is that life is much more car-dependent here.  I was totally fine for five years in Berkeley without a car.  But a week in SC (three days of which I rented a car anyway) is already a little annoying.  This place is just not as set up for car-free living.  It's doable, but it will be easier once I've gotten a car, and I don't have to do things like walk for 45 minutes to get to Ace Hardware and discover they don't have what I wanted anyway.  All things considered, then: A-.  (It's the stuff that's generally correlated with low population density that brings this one down a bit.)

Penn State campus.  It's really pretty!  Prettier than I expected, actually.  Let's be clear, it's no Berkeley, but no campus really compares to Berkeley, with its eucalyptus grove and redwood trees and babbling brooks.  The PSU campus is pretty in an East Coast, brick buildings, lots of foliage and criss crossing paths sort of way.  It's definitely more like the U of I campus than like Berkeley, although it seems geographically more compact than the U of I.  Definitely classy, but welcoming too, and that's a nice combination.  B+

My new department.  It's going to be kind of weird to be in a psychology department, I can tell.  I got a tour of our facilities yesterday and discovered that my little branch of our department occupies the bottom two floors of a six story building occupied entirely by psychologists.  There are so many psychologists.  It is weird.  But I've got to say, everyone has been fantastic so far.  Incredibly warm, nice, welcoming, and helpful.  It definitely doesn't feel like home in the way Berkeley did, and I sort of doubt that it ever will, since I spent five years with the same small group of folks who all knew me pretty well.  (It was kind of like high school in that respect.)  But there are definite perks to being in such a big powerhouse of a department here.  They have some serious resources, for one thing; the building is beautiful and modern, and the research facilities are really great.  It's going to take some adjusting, but I'm pretty sure I'll manage to get used to it.  A-, for reasons of sentimentality.

Downtown area.  Super cute!  It's kind of like... Green Street plus Downtown Urbana, if you're an Illinois person, and maybe... Elmwood plus Northside, if you're a Berkeley person.  Lots of places to eat, extremely safe, but also has a distinctly collegiate feel to it.  One thing that's really interesting to me is that the types of restaurants here are just nothing like Berkeley.  First of all, the actual-restaurant-to-bar ratio is waaaaay tipped towards the bar end of the scale, which is the opposite of Berkeley.  Also, there's a lot more "normal" food here than in Berkeley, and by that I mean the offerings here are not as interesting.  The more mainstream types of "ethnic cuisine" are definitely represented (Thai, Chinese, Mexican), but you can replace things like Vietnamese and Ethiopian with like, Italian and German.  There's a German deli and an Austrian deli downtown, and that kind of blows my mind.  I think I'd rather have Ethiopian food, but I guess I'll take my time here as an opportunity to become reacquainted with the food of my people.  A-

Undergraduate student body.  It's pretty weird to be surrounded by thousands of 19 year olds attending a Big Ten school again.  It's taking me back to 2003 in a major way.  If I put my 2003 brain on, it feels pretty normal.  Like, oh yeah, I remember frat boys with backwards baseball caps and sorority girls with bleached blond hair and short shorts.  It is weird to walk to campus through my neighborhood and be surrounded by evidence that 50,000 rowdy undergrads inhabit this town.  There are gaggles of made-up girls in sequined tank tops roaming from house to house, and boys in polo shirts crowding on to dilapidated porches to play beer pong and yell at passers-by.  And I say "girls" and "boys" because it is striking to me how much they resemble children.  I cannot believe I am going to be in charge of educating these young minds.  ("Animals," my neighbor calls them.  "A hoard of savage beasts.")  When I think about how much the people in some of my classes drove me crazy in college, I get a little bit apprehensive about being in charge of them next semester.  But whatever: for now, it feels strangely familiar, and I'm okay with it.  B

Smoking.  There are so many people who smoke here!  It is really weird!  I think what this actually means is that there are very few people who smoke in Berkeley (well, who smoke cigarettes, anyway...) and I didn't notice that, because I don't smoke.  But now that there are people smoking everywhere I go, it's very noticeable, and very strange.  On the other hand, I've been here a whole week and have yet to walk by someone getting high on the sidewalk, so, there's that.  C

Driver/pedestrian etiquette.  Remember when I moved to California and was perpetually annoyed with drivers actually stopping for me when I was approaching a cross walk?  Well, I have now come full circle, because I'm really confused about when I'm supposed to cross the street.  I lived in California long enough to accept the fact that drivers expected - even wanted - me to cross the street in front of them.  That is definitely not the case here, and I'm having a hard time remembering what I'm supposed to do when I get to a cross walk at the same time as a motor vehicle.  Do I slow down?  Speed up?  make eye contact and wave them ahead?  Not make eye contact and assume they're going to just barely come to a rolling stop anyway?  Lay flat on my stomach and wait until it's over??  I don't know what to do anymore.  It's usually fine because they usually exhibit no signs whatsoever of detecting my presence and just blow through the intersection anyway.  I guess I'll get used to that again soon.  What's interesting to me is that driver/pedestrian etiquette is only noticeable (and really, only dangerous) when you don't have an intuitive sense of how it works.  I'm not making a value judgment in either direction, just observing that the important thing is to internalize the customs, whatever they may be.  S, for satisfactory.

Pennsylvania liquor laws.  This is the first place I've ever lived where you have to go to a special store to buy alcohol.  It's stupid.  And it doesn't accomplish anything except making me go to a special store to buy alcohol.  Apparently you can only buy two six-packs of beer at a time here, too?  I dunno, I read that somewhere.  The upshot is that I haven't bought any alcohol since I've been here, because alcohol stores make me feel kind of skeezy.  (I think there may be separate stores for beer vs. wine and liquor, too.  It sort of looks like "bottle shops" are for beer, and there are plenty of those around, but I haven't seen any wine or liquor stores.)  Anyway, why can't I just buy a six-pack of Blue Moon at the grocery store like a normal person, Pennsylvania?  What's the freakin' deal?  F

Farmers' market.  The farmers' market here (and CSAs; see below) might make up for the stupid liquor laws.  I went to the farmers' market for the first time today, and it was so cute.  Just like everything in this town is so cute.  Pretty much all of the vendors were Amish, which is kind of a trip when you're used to the Berkeley farmers' market.  The Berkeley markets are huge, with weird but awesome California produce (avocados! $1 each!  fresh figs! $5/basket!), and are filled with a wonderfully and totally Berkelified clientele.  Lots of tattoos and piercings and half-mullets and homemade clothes and people who probably shop exclusively at the farmers' market because we only have one Earth, man.  And I love that, don't get me wrong, but it is pretty much the quintessential liberal hippie paradise.  When you're used to that and then suddenly the person behind the table is a sweet little Amish boy wearing overalls and a straw hat and calling you ma'am, it's kind of a trip.  Anyway, the farmers' market was amazing, and Amish products are amazing, and the prices were dirt cheap!!  Maybe because the vendors have less far to travel to get here?  Maybe because the cost of producing things is just so much cheaper here?  (Gas, land, water, fertilizer... it's probably all way cheaper here.)  In any case, I spent way less than I ever spent at the Berkeley FM, and got way more, so a big ol' thumbs up for that.  I'm a little sad I can't get fresh figs anymore, but what are you gonna do?  A

CSA offerings.  Related to the farmers' market offerings, there are some amazing CSAs out here.  I found this dairy CSA, where you get to order raw, local, organic dairy products every week and they deliver them straight to your door.  I think I have died and gone to dairy fat heaven (which is probably what my heaven would be anyway).  The only slight bummer is that produce shares are far less flexible here than in California.  In the Bay Area anyway, you can sign up for as many weeks of produce as you like, and stop and start your order whenever you like, and there's always plenty of local crops available year round.  Here the CSAs only run from March to November (because things don't grow from November to March, because I am back in the land of seasons), and you have to sign up for the full season in advance, which means you're plunking down $400 dollars in February for a half year's worth of fruit and vegetables.  Maybe to offset this slight bummer, there are other CSAs that run year round, like dairy products and herbs and fresh baked bread.  I'm totally doing the dairy one, and I'm going to try to find a winter vegetable share somewhere too, but those are a little few and far between.  In any case, way to go, PA.  A