A PROMISE to California,

Also to the great Pastoral Plains, and for Oregon:

Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust American love;

For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you, inland, and along the Western Sea;

For These States tend inland, and toward the Western Sea—and I will also.

—Walt Whitman

Nice motto for the homeland. I’ll be remembering this as I being the long sojourn through the Ph.D.