Who says you can't go home?

For better or worse, the first semester is behind me. And (for all professors who may be perusing this blog), I do hope that I get a chance to return for the second semester. Overall, I believe I performed well on the exams, but there are one or two that are haunting me. We have been told (by the upperclassmen) not to expect grades to be posted until mid-January (classes begin on January 22); but, if you have no hopes of returning, you will receive a phone call long before then. So, my prayer is that my phone doesn’t ring.

Of course, as long as I am at my mom’s house (where I am staying during the break), there is no way that I’ll receive a phone call from the law school…or from anyone else. During the break I landed a sweet deal to return to the hometown and work for the former employer, i.e., at the law firm. I was very excited to have the opportunity and left Lynchburg within 24 hours of finishing exams. Who says you can't go home? (Other than Thomas Wolfe...and Bon Jovi.) My hometown is a quaint little place—a tiny dot on the map; but, I am staying at my mom’s, which is 25 miles away from town and an even smaller dot on the map. She lives in a place that we call “the country.” You can follow the map or GPS, but you’ll know you’ve arrived when your cell phone has lost its signal. At that point you can exclaim, “Welcome Home!” Ok, I'm over-exaggerating somewhat. You can get cell phone service, but only in the front yard. So, if you want to make a call, you must go outside and contend with the weather and all of the background noises, e.g., traffic, horns (rednecks love to blow their horns at folks on the phone in the front yard), dogs barking (there is a two dog minimum in the country), and various other farm animals, like roosters, goats, etc. Here, I wish I was exaggerating, but I am not.

I wouldn’t be so enamored with talking on the phone if I could get online and chat with some friends on AIM or Gmail. But, in the country (you guessed it) we do not have Internet. The only thing to do after dinner is to watch tv (whatever the rabbit ears can pick up) or watch each other's hair grow. I actually had a precious conversation with my mom and stepdad the first night I was home about my need for Internet service. My mom was kind enough to call several folks to see if they had Internet and if I could borrow their Internet; and, being country folk, they gladly agreed. I appreciated her effort, but I was certain that somewhere in this small metropolitan area there had to be wireless Internet that I could use without sitting in a stranger's living room. I left the house, with my laptop in tow, and headed for the local library, only to find that it closes at 5:30 (so much for our literacy campaign). I then headed to the local college (which is also my alma mater). The college’s library closes at 8:00 p.m. (which is late for this rural community), but it had no wireless service. I then passed a hotel on the highway, circled back, and pulled up to a room. Sure enough, I could get wireless, but I had to have a password. (So close, but so far away.)

I gave up on the search for wireless in "the country" and decided that I would just stay in town the next night after work and find some wireless in the area. After asking around, I was thrilled to find that my hometown now actually has two Starbucks (which always has wireless, don’t you know!). So, after work, I couldn’t get to Starbucks fast enough. I ordered a Venti Mocha Cappucino (because I planned on staying there a long time), and I popped open the laptop. As my blood pressure started to rise, the waiter explained to me that their Internet service was down. Ugh! So, I packed up and drove to the second Starbucks location in town, but their Internet was down as well. I called a third coffee shop in town—rather than burning another gallon of gas—and they didn’t have wireless, but they told me that Krispy Kreme Doughnuts did have wireless. I was in Krispy Kreme’s parking lot in mere minutes and finally had the wireless connection that I had been searching for for 48 hours. I will be spending a lot of time at Krispy Kreme during Christmas break, and hopefully I can avoid the temptation of the “Hot Doughnuts Now” sign.

Who says you can’t go home again? Of course you can… as long as you can live without your cell phone or Internet.