PHIL IN THE BLANK: Back to school

Thanks to a faulty memory and fondness for booking nonrefundable hotel room, I’m spending two weekends in a row in Columbus, Ohio, this month.
I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, so it’s almost my hometown. It’s the home of my alma mater, the Ohio State University. I’m also a Wolverine grad and have lived here in Michigan for most of my life now, but I’m a born and bred Buckeye.
This year would have included my 25-year class reunion at Ohio State, if anyone had organized such a thing. I received my undergraduate degree in journalism in 1994, three years after I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1991.
I took classes all year for three years, summers included. I was pretty burned out by the end.
Last weekend, I took some time out from my anime convention to go on an evening run around the OSU campus, something I usually do when I go down there. Got a smile from a co-ed, which was nice. She was feeling sorry for me or showing encouragement. Either is fine.
The place has been built up quite a bit in the last two-and-a-half decades since I was there as a student. New buildings have been built between buildings I took classes in. Some of the new ones were made to look like the buildings around them, which makes it really confusing. The open space next to the Horseshoe is all built up, filled with indoor athletic facilities. In my day, we ran around in the grass and dirt.
I trotted by the old journalism building, the place I was taught everything about what I’m doing now. It’s a communications building now. Probably changed quite a bit inside.
We were still using some sort of main frame, terminal computer system back then, with flickering green screens able to display the document you were working on and nothing else. It would tell you how many copy inches you were typing. Now I can adjust column widths as I’m going along, to fit whatever needs to go there. The newsroom is probably just a bunch of desks with USB outlets built into them. Do they still have phones? Certainly no dark rooms with film processing chemicals anymore.
I should be able to find out this weekend during my second consecutive weekend visit. I’ll stop by during the day, so I should be able to go inside.

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