T Stands for Some Art

     Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. I'm here with my post for  T day over at bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog. I thought I had scheduled this post for later this evening, but I guess I didn't so it's up a bit early. However it's not that early where I have to delete it. 

    Last week we had some lovely weather, and I spent much of it working outside. But on Friday one of my friends asked me if I wanted to go to the senior project presentations over at the University of New Hampshire. Graduating seniors work on some sort of research project depending on their major. They then create a display  board and at a selected time, different majors display their project boards. Visitors can walk around and view the boards, plus the students are there to talk about their projects or answer your questions. I remember going to one of these when my daughter was about to graduate, and since she was getting a degree in civil engineering, her presentation time was with her school of engineering. This past Friday was when the biology/biological science students were on display, and so I was really interested to go (since my undergrad degree was in biology and I taught high school biology for 36 years). 

    It was fascinating to see what some of these students were working on. My friend's former student had asked her to attend, and his project was in immunology. I learned some new things and was happy I remembered as much my pre-retirement life as I did. 👍 And boy, biology has sure come a long way since I was in college. Grin.

    I won't bore you with the details of the presentations, but afterwards my friend and I took a walk around campus and the town of Durham (where we parked and where the University is lcoated). We even happened upon the University art museum where some student art was on display. I thought I would share some art today since I am sure many of you aren't interested in the Hedgehog signalling pathway (the name of a human cell development pathway I learned  a little bit about at the presentations) or other biological process.

Here's a few murals that were downtown where we parked.

    And here's a permanent collage on the outside of the art building. This must be fairly new because the last time I walked around this campus (a couple of years ago) I don't remember seeing it.

And here's a few pieces of student art in the campus museum that I thought were interesting, starting with this paper sculpture.

     And my favorite pieces in the student museum were these next few by artist Miranda Fay.

     And I'm not sure who this next artist was, but they had a collection of clothes made out of paper on both full sized and doll sized mannequins that I thought was pretty clever. I only ended up with one photo, so sadly I can't share the other clothes.

     Afterwards my friend and I went to lunch. We didn't want to pay for more parking so we headed to the next town over (Dover) and went to a place we had been to before called the Fat Dog Cafe. They make the best BLT's there (bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches) with chipotle mayo and avocado.

    I upgraded to sweet potato tots, because I'd never had them before, and I would get them again in a heartbeat. They were really tasty. And you can see I had water to drink which is my ticket for T this week.

    That's enough for one post. Wishing everyone a wonderful T day and week ahead. 

    

Out on a Walk

Hi everyone. 

Today my post has something different to show you.

While my daughter and her beau were visiting this past weekend, we went out for a stroll around their old college campus. They both went to the University of New Hampshire, which is about 30 minutes away from my house, and they were nice enough to invite me to join them. (The hubby wanted to stay home and clean his boat, even though he was invited.)

It was a great place to walk as it is not too hilly and there was hardly anyone there. So we could easily social distance as we got some exercise.

My daughter posed for a photo but I couldn't get her beau to stand there with her.

I hadn't been on campus for a long time and not only was it nice to see it all green, but there were some new art installations too.

Like this cardinal.

 And I managed to spot some things I thought made interesting photos.

 The students have been gone since mid-March with the Corona virus. Maybe that is why these chalk monsters are smiling.

And I liked reading the stickers on the lamp posts.

Not much left here but I wonder how exactly many years of messages were put up on the message board. 

I ws explained to me that a tree died and this cool statue was carved from the remains.

And I had to stop to smell the lilacs. They are a favorite of mine.  And the state flower of New Hampshire also.

A train comes through campus that connects Portland, Maine and Boston, MA. I love how they fixed up this old train station.  And they added a small restaurant too. They sell sandwiches and ice cream.  When my daughter was at school and I would stop by to pick her up we sometimes went and had an ice cream.  I might have suggested one during our walk but the Dairy Bar is closed like the rest of campus.

The university's mascot is a wildcat. They say that students will have good luck if they rub the cat's nose. You can see how it is more worn from lots of hands rubbing it.

And this older but rather unimpressive building  below is where I took most of my grad school classes. This is the education building. 

And even though I went to grad school here, I was just a part time student taking evening classes.  never really made a strong connection with the school. I was already teaching full time at this point, and I also had a young child at home. It was a little bit busy time for me, and so making a strong connection just didn't matter that much. The other reason I didn't make a strong connection is this university's major rival is the school where I did my undergraduate degree at, the University of Maine.  Some of you might have read about that from I've written about hockey games. My connection to my undergraduate school is much stronger given the fact that I was a 4 year full time student there.

And these next 2 photos are my favorite photos.

I love the crab apple blossom petals all over the ground.

And this is  a piece of (I think-maybe?) granite. New Hampshire is the granite state. What a cool looking stone slab though.

Obviously someone had been celebrating on campus. 

Maybe an engagement? Or they just graduated? I wonder how long those champagne bottles had been sitting on the table.

I had a great 2 1/2 mile walk and I learned a lot about the university that I didn't know. I hope you enjoyed this virtual walk with me.
Thanks for visiting.