Farmland

I grew up in a college town in central Pennsylvania, where you encounter farmland within 15 minutes of driving any direction off campus. After 21 years of those surroundings, and having never known anything else, I was ready for a change in grad school and chose to come out to the west coast. While I love breathing the ocean air and going for runs in Golden Gate Park, I find myself longing for those fields when I need a break from the city (and from my PhD). I hate to say it, but the cliches about needing to be away from something to appreciate it are probably true.