Mine

Whatever is well said by another, is mine.

~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

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I'm going to be leaving ISU soon.  It is my institution.  It is my place.  I love it.  I have so much admiration and respect for the people with whom I work and from whom I have had a chance to learn in the past 12 or so years.  I wouldn't have guessed I would be here so long when I just came for a "practice interview."  I love Iowa State University.  I am truly proud to be a Cyclone.

And I don't feel selfish that I am calling ISU mine.  It is.  I certainly share it and find connection and community with others who are here or have been here in some form or fashion.  But it is also uniquely mine because I have had my own lived experience here.  And no one else can have that.  Despite common ground.

I like that we each have our own pieces of the world.  Every place we have been is uniquely ours based on our experience in that place.  We own it and carry it with us and re-experience it when we return.  And we all run out and yell, "Get out of my yard!" when others try to encroach on our places. Well, most of us don't yell that in a literal sense.  Most of us yell it in nonsense.