"You have died of dysentery."

In “The Wizard of Oz,” a dazzled Dorothy stumbles into Munchkin land, only to utter one of the best-known lines in movie history, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” This year, I had left my own little Kansas voluntarily, only to find myself in Munchkin land, so to speak.

Having graduated from a class with an astounding total of 20 seniors, I admit I had a bit of a shock to walk around a campus with literally a thousand times that many students. Illinois State University has been a giant change for me.

I went from tiny school, where my best friend was senior class President and I was secretary and treasurer, to just another nameless face in the horde of education majors. No one knows what a Krekel’s is, or why taking the Krekel’s car to prom was a big deal. Monical’s has the best pizza, especially with their French dressing. My friends aren’t here to take me muddin’ on the weekends when it rains.

I had never heard of Portillo’s. I don’t know what the Bean is, but I am told I should. I don’t really know what the Buckingham fountain is, but my roommate tells me that all of these things are something everyone should know.

Walking to class each day in my cowboy boots and Carhartt, I am surrounded by a sea of black North Face coats. The talk floating around my head has a distinct Chicago area accent. Ask 100 students where their hometown is, and 98 of them will claim a city near Chicago, if not the enormous city itself.

I hadn’t even been to Chicago till late 2008.

The average student at ISU is as seemingly different form me as a Toyota is from a Ford.

Yet in spite of all these differences, I still find friends who are just like me.

I have found that no matter who you talk to on this campus, they will always know the tune, if not all the words to the song, “Stacey’s Mom,” or the 867-5309 song. We all can hum the theme song to the television show, Rugrats, and watched Power Rangers. We might have even watched Bob Ross paint some happy trees for a little while before flipping to a different station. Pokémon were the coolest back then, but no one could have been cooler than the Backstreet Boys or Spice Girls. We typed “boobies” into our calculators when teachers weren’t looking, and most of us died of dysentery while playing Oregon Trail.

We shared the same experiences, even though we lived in different places.