Two Hundred Miles, A T Ride, and A Couple of Llamas

Posted September 19, 2014 by kbryan

My days begin and end with llamas.

“Huh, what?” you ask. “I thought this was a blog about all the joys and challenges of being a SLIS student in Boston! What’s this llama nonsense?!? I want my money back!”

Let me explain.

Rest assured: This is definitely a SLIS “student experience” blog, and I’m very much a SLIS student. But as a SLIS West-er who takes the majority of her classes at Mt. Holyoke, most of my days are spent far from One Palace Road — 99.9 miles, if Google Maps’ accuracy can be trusted. The place I call home isn’t a Back Bay brownstone, or a walkup apartment in Brookline or the Longwood area. It’s an old white farmhouse with green shutters in a Western Massachusetts hill town. The Connecticut River is a stone’s throw away. And there’s a llama farm next door.

Having llamas as my closest neighbors isn’t something I reflect on often. I’ve pet them a couple times. At least once a day, usually in the morning when I’m headed to work, they look up and stare at me, which I suppose is the four-legged mammalian equivalent of a wave, or “hello.” That’s pretty much the extent of our relationship.

These days, however, I’m spending my Wednesday evenings in Boston, discussing curriculum standards with my LIS 426 class as a steady symphony of ambulance sirens from the nearby Longwood Medical Area plays in the background. And I can’t help but contrast the two different environs of my two disparate lives. Six out of seven days, I’m surrounded by llamas and sweet corn stands, rolling hills and green pastures. On Wednesday afternoons, I leave all these behind as I trek east on Route 2, hop on the T, and become, temporarily, a Bostonian and a student at Simmons’ main campus. Making my way through the throngs of joggers, medical residents, and college students, it’s hard to believe I was one with the llamas less than 12 hours earlier.

I’m going to be frank: sometimes it’s frustrating to be a SLIS West-er. Several times a day, you receive emails about job or internship opportunities, or workshops at the SLIS Tech Lab, or pizza parties and networking events, nearly all of which take place at or near the Boston campus. Depending on your program, you may have to make the two-hour-or-so trip to Boston for one or two classes. You may even experience the onset of an identity crisis. “Can I really call myself a SLIS West student if I take classes in Boston? Help!”

It’s still early in my Simmons career, but having experienced life on both SLIS campuses, I think I can safely say SLIS West students have the best of both worlds. Thanks to the Five Colleges and other local institutions, we in the Pioneer Valley, as in Boston, belong to a thriving intellectual community, whose members appreciate librarians and the support they provide in all kinds of learning. We get to take classes in Mt. Holyoke’s Williston Library — the most gorgeous academic library building in the country, for my money. We’re surrounded by lush scenery, and a wide variety of flora and fauna (like llamas!). We’ve got creamie stands and Atkins Farm cider donuts and Yankee Candle just down the road. Boston’s only a couple hours away, and we can head there as our time and wallets allow. Honestly, many of us are just too darn content to want to leave.

Each Wednesday, I consider myself particularly lucky. In one 18-hour span, I get to travel 100 miles. I encounter the cows, creamies and sweet corn stands that are mainstays of country life in Western Mass., ride the T with people from all backgrounds, and explore the intellectual development of K-12 students.

And when I get home at midnight, the llamas will be waiting for me. It just doesn’t get any better.