You know you're in the Midwest when...

Today I was sitting in the waiting area at the hospital today, reading a business book for a class next quarter and a lady I'd never seen before started asking me about my studies.  So I told her about this arts admin master's degree I'm working towards and what my life ambitions are and so on.  She was so tickled that "a girl from Carroll, Iowa, was going places."  She was so thrilled she told me she'd pray for me.  I thought that was pretty sweet.  Five years ago, that would have upset me, praying for me like I cared.  However, 23 year old me is way more tolerant and a lot less angry than 18 year old me.  The older I become the more I have been able to appreciate being raised in a small farming community.  Here's a list of reasons I appreciate Carroll:

1. It only takes me 10 minutes with traffic to get from one end of town to the other.
2. Cost of living is so cheap
3. Great Mexican food -- I haven't been able to find decent Mexican in the 'Nati.
4. My family is here.
5. People are always saying hello and smiling.  People are friendly here.
6. Familiarity.  I feel a certain sense of comfort when I come home because I know things are pretty much the exact same as how I left them.  The same 7 old dudes walk laps in the pool at the Rec every night, and the same farmers get coffee at MC's Cafe in the morning, and the same group of little old ladies go to 6:30am Mass everyday.  I like the routine.

Please don't think that I'm planning to move back home after I graduate in June.  That will happen under no circumstances!  There are no jobs for me and I would go insane.  I've also complied a list of things I don't like about Carroll:

1. There is nothing to do here.  We have a movie theatre, a recreation center, and a bowling alley.  We're hopping.
2. People drive so slow here.  It's ridiculous.
3. Everything is fried.  That's fine and dandy when it's Fair time in August, but it's totally unnecessary for the remaining 50 weeks of the year.
4. In that same vein, French fries are a vegetable here.
5. I cannot find good coffee here.
6. The amount of snow we get each winter is insane!  Both my parents were without power for nearly a week last winter!

Neither of these are exhaustive lists, but they're a good representation of my feelings for my  hometown.  I hope all of my collegiate followers are surviving their time at home this holiday season.

Stay tuned, and happy holidays!

-Caro

The Wheels on the Bus

I am finally home.  After 31 hours of travel, I finally made it to Carroll.  Traveling from Cincinnati to Iowa is a lesson in inconvenience.  It appears that no one from Cincinnati wants to travel to Iowa and no one from Iowa wants to travel to Cincinnati.  I don’t blame either party.  However, this makes it rather difficult for me to trek home.  I usually fly, but due to my current unemployed student status, I cannot afford that.  Instead I took the Megabus.  This required me to take a six hour bus ride from Cincinnati to Chicago.  Then I spent the evening in the Windy City, only to hop on another but for another six hours the next morning.  It didn't end there, my friends.  After I got off the bus in Des Moines, Iowa’s fair capital city, I had to be retrieved by someone with a motorized vehicle and ride another two hours to my home town.  To be honest, flying isn’t much easier.  There’s almost always a layover somewhere, and I still have to drive two hours from either Omaha or Des Moines.  Dear Western Iowa, why must you be so inconveniently located?  Dear Cincinnati, Why do you suck? Love, Carolyne

Despite having to conduct my travels over two days, I actually enjoy the Megabus.  It’s warm, clean, cheap, and has free Wifi when the satellites are working.  My two bus tickets combined cost me $70, which is less than a third of what it would cost me to fly.  I also don’t have to worry about keeping my liquids in one travel size bag or security patting me down.  If I had to name the best reason to travel via Megabus, I would say are less likely to strike up a conversation with you than if you were flying.  You also don’t generally have share a seat with anyone.  Megabus is meant for people who don’t like people, like me.  You show up.  You put your luggage on the bus. You get on the bus. Driver drives. Simple.

After I got off the bus yesterday, I had explicit instructions to get in a cab and go to my aunt and uncle’s apartment.  Hailing a cab was going to be the highlight of my day.  I like to celebrate the little things in like.  At any rate, I ended up not taking a cab because it was going to cost me $40 to get from Union Station to Lakeview.  According to the fare finder website I looked up the night before, it should have only cost me $15-20 with tax.  I thought maybe the first cabbie was trying to scam, seeing as I definitely looked like an out of towner (damn you winter coat.).  So I walked about four blocks out of my way to find another cabbie.  He too said it would cost $35 - $40.  Not cool, cabbies.  Not cool.  I thanked the cabbie and proceeded to walk away from him.  He then rolled down his window and shouted profanities at me.  At which point, this became one of my highlights of the evening.  The other highlight was navigating myself from Union Station to Michigan Ave. to take a bus to my aunt and uncle’s house, saving myself $40 and bring the circulation back to my feet.  As I mentioned before, I like to celebrate the little things.

Dear Readers, I have done something stupid.  I promised my mother a 90% sarcasm free holiday.  For those of you who know me personally, this estimate was exuberantly enthusiastic.  I should have aimed for a more realistic number such as 65%.  However, I will do my best to keep my promise.  As a result from this very trying experience, there will be an increase in snarky blogs.  Stay tuned.  I won’t disappoint.

Art With An Expiration Date?

University of Iowa Performing Arts Entrepreneurship Professor, David McGraw wrote a very interesting opinion article for the Iowa City Press Citizen about the expiration date of arts organizations.  He mentioned our society’s habit of confusing age with quality, how we are more likely to support an organization that has been around longer, and our refusal to let organizations close their doors quietly.  Mr. McGraw suggests creating arts organizations with expiration dates.  An organization would be created with the sole purpose of creating art and ending at a specific date.  Mr. McGraw described such organizations as collaborations that focus on the celebration of art being created rather than the longevity of the organization. While I am not completely sold on this idea, I do think it has some merit.

I would like to address Mr. McGraw’s concern with our society’s inability to let longstanding organizations close their doors quietly.  Whether we realize it or not, we have a relationship with the arts and the organizations that produce them.  No one likes to see a relationship end, which makes it so difficult to let go of an organization we’ve been familiar with for so long.  Arts organizations that plan to exist for only a few years seem very similar to flings.  People go into the fling knowing it’s going to end soon, but eventually someone starts to have lasting feelings.  Someone always ends up getting hurt.  I cannot accurately say who will be hurt one in this situation.  Perhaps it’s the community because there is suddenly a void of the arts.  Maybe it's patrons who have come to enjoy, maybe even love, the work the organization created.  It could be the managers and artists who are suddenly out of job, forced to create another similar organization or move to a new city, away from their supportive community.

Who’s funding these short-term organizations?  Donors like to know where their money is going and how the company is being affected.  The minds of donors are put more at ease when giving to an organization that has been operating for long time because they know the company is sustainable.  Donors know there is a relationship between the community and the organization.  On a more egocentric note, donors like to a part of the legacy.  They like to see their names in programs and receive the benefits promised for their certain levels of donation.  If an organization only plans to exist for five years, it is going to be a lot harder to find people to give money.

Maybe in the future, when the economy is better and money is more plentiful, we can have these short-term organizations interspersed with longstanding organizations.  However, I don’t think this is a sustainable model right now. 

--Caro