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My friend from home came to visit recently. Like myself, he is a native New Englander, and when he told me prior to his visit that he had never been to the Midwest, I got to thinking about my first trip to Oxford when I visited Miami for the first time in August 2004. If I had known then what I know now about Oxford, the experience would certainly have been less terrifying.

I showed up sight-unseen on the first day of orientation, and when I say sight-unseen, I mean territory unseen, too, because I had never been farther west than New York. I remember flying into the Dayton airport and opening the shade on the plane to look at what seemed to be a patchwork quilt of fields. It was a lot different than the view I had seen during take-off — Boston Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean.

I remember walking off the plane and feeling a humidity that I had not felt since spending a summer in Georgia a few years before. It was a welcome present that I've grown accustomed to, as I now live in Oxford during the dog days of August and truly know how it feels to be sticky.

The airport shuttle driver and I got to talking on the way to Oxford as we passed through the fields I'd seen on the descent into Ohio. I tried to pry information out of her without seeming judgmental or completely ignorant. "So, what do people at Miami do for fun?" I asked. "Well, there's an amusement park an hour away and they're going to be building a new Super Wal-Mart," she said.

Suddenly the old farmhouses were not as picturesque as they had first seemed. I felt like Dorothy, plunked in the middle of Oz knowing it was far too late to head back to Kansas. I had the dreaded feeling that I would spend the next four years of my life camped out in the library for lack of anything better to do.

Half way into my third year of school here, I've realized that Oxford is the college town I was looking for all along. I just couldn't pinpoint it at the time. My opinion of Oxford has surely changed, and the town continues to impress me more with every year that I spend here.

I like being able to walk Uptown to get my bottomless cup of coffee at Kofenya, where the mugs are homemade and the regular bunch is always studying or talking with friends. I like catching $5.50 movies at the Princess, a real treasure as far as modern cinemas go. I love to wake up early and go to the farmer's market Uptown on Saturday mornings to marvel at the fresh vegetables and crafts displayed by local vendors. And most of all, I love that as the years go by, I have slowly started to recognize nonstudents when I walk up High Street.

Working at The Oxford Press this semester has really opened me up to the community closeness here. People genuinely care about the well-being of their town and their neighbors. Earlier this year I covered the "Introducing Talawanda" night where members of the community gathered enthusiastically to introduce the school district they are so proud of to new members of the community. It is events like this that make Oxford a special place to live in.

With his trip coming to a close, my friend likened Oxford to a cocoon, and while I pointed out that it was actually "the bubble," I nevertheless understood what he meant. The town of Oxford will surely be a significant part of my memories at Miami. I know that if I ever come back, it will undoubtedly welcome me again with open arms, just as it did two years ago. It is because of this that Oxford will always feel like home.