I’m not entirely sure where I live. I know what my permanent address would lead you to believe: that I’m a resident of Elkhorn, WI, a small town in the southeastern part of the state. But over the course of this year I’ve been there maybe a month total. Entire hotels have been planned and put up in my absence. I don’t really think I can say I live there anymore. And if I don’t live there, well, I must live here in Eau Claire. Still, I’m a student who’s only been in town three years. I don’t have a permanent address. Do I live here? Am I a local?

This is going to tell you a lot about me, but one thing that in my mind constitutes my idea of “where I live” is where I get my comic books. For the last three years (minus a semester stint in Australia), I’ve been getting my comics in Eau Claire. Putting comics on a pull list is a commitment; it means you’re going to show up each month and buy those comics. It is not a contract to be entered into lightly, lest you incur the wrath of the mighty comic shop manager. Still, I bet I’d get a torrent of comments, not many of them nice, if I defined being a local as simply where I get my comics from, and, thankfully, I don’t.

Even though I’ve been buying comics here for three years, if you’d asked I wouldn’t have described myself as a local until Christmas break of last school year. Last year was the first I lived off-campus and the first I spent the summer in Eau Claire, and it did wonders for my budding locality. I tubed the river for the first time. I hit up Jeff and Jim’s Pizza on a regular basis. I went to Durand for the amazing Blues on the Chippewa. I experienced my first Volume One Back-Alley movie. I took my first real bike runs down the Chippewa River State Trail. While I’d technically been living in Eau Claire since I started college, last year is the first year that I could really tell you that I LIVED in Eau Claire. It was the first year that I fully experienced the food, arts, nature, and atmosphere that make Eau Claire what it is.

    The dorms, as most anyone will tell you, are an isolating factor. They trap you in, confine you to the TV, computer, and microwave you brought with you from your parents’ house. They’re (for the most part) tossed up on the top of the hill, about as far away from Water Street and downtown as anything can be while still being on-campus. And while UWEC does make an effort through programs such as Freshman Year Experience classes to integrate students into the larger community, it really is something that people have to do for themselves. When I went to Australia, I didn’t experience Perth by having teachers hold my hand and ride the train into the city with me. I rode it and explored the city myself. Living off-campus has finally gotten me to do that here in Eau Claire, and my time here is better for it.

Now, after a year of immersion in Eau Claire, I feel that I’ve earned the title of local. I can see why some would be hesitant to give that title out to students, transplants in their twenties who often only come to get their degree and then head elsewhere. But how can you complain that students often leave the community upon their graduation – the much debated “brain drain” – if you never let them feel they’re a part of the community in the first place? The truth is, students are everywhere in this town. We’re working at restaurants, putting on plays, interning with magazines and museums, volunteering with clinics and the humane society.

Students are just as much a part of Eau Claire as any other group; what we do is just as important. I have yet to feel any student discrimination directly, but the fact that it even exists in a community where students are so involved is astounding. Yes, we should have to earn the title of local, but many of us do and it goes unnoticed.

This summer, I plan to be more local than ever. I’ve got a nice place on Sixth and Congress from which I plan to do more writing for this publication and look for a job and some volunteer opportunities while I’m at it. Next year, I’ll be mentoring an FYE class myself, and I’m going to do my best to get those students self-exploring the arts, food, nature, and atmosphere of Eau Claire, the city I live in, as soon as possible. Their time here will be better for it.