My Minnesota Summer: An Introductory Post
Greetings, loyal followers.
I write you from the land of 10,000 Lakes: Minneapolis, Minnesota. Exactly one week ago today, my mother, the woman who carried me in her supple uterus for 9 months and 11 days, dropped me off in this fair city and then just left. I would say it’s a little like desertion, but after contacting various police outlets, I’ve learned that when you’re 21, it’s really just “dropping off.”
I look forward to attempting to blog every other day in this journal and updating you on the whims and ways of a girl who has no friends, family, or boyfriend in her immediate five mile radius. As you can imagine, it’s going to get super interesting.
Because this could end up playing out like a bad, bad movie (think as horrible Grizzleyman or Glitter), I’ve decided to list a cast of characters and scenery for you to look foward to getting to know in the next ten weeks that Minneapolis is my home away from home (at MSU) away from home (in DeWitt) away from home (because my cottage is my real home, anyways). Onwards:
Introducing…in no particular order except the order that I think of them:
1. Asian Lovenest: Asian Lovenest is where I reside in Dinkytown, Minneapolis, Minnesota. It’s a highrise apartment building that was built in the 1960s and has had no improvements made to it since. It houses mostly international students, hence why I have informed my neighbors my name is Mercedes Isabella Paulio, a student ambassador to Italy. Well, I would inform my neighbors that if I knew who my neighbors were or had ever seen them. Anyways, Asian Lovenest is a sublease from some Korean UMinn students who left their Asian Invasion furniture just for me and the Rooms to use over the summer. We have a lot of Sushi bowls, chopsticks, 3 rice cookers, and an entire cupboard of food and ingredients we cannot read or pronounce. To solve this problem, we’ ve simply shut the cupboard and don’t intend to open it up again.
2. Rooms: Rooms is a girl I met at an Intern Meet and Greet who lives with me in the Lovenest. We work at the same place, but she works in a different building because she is an engineer and prefers to deal with things that can’t speak and I prefer to deal with people. We’ll see by the end of the summer who has it easier.
3. Hal: Hal is Hal Hagdon, maker of the infamous “Half Marathon Training Schedule” that lots of people on the internet use, mostly because when you google “Half Marathon Training Schedule,” his is the first link that comes up. He’s my fitness instructor for the summer and I half-ass prepare to run the Lansing River Run on September 26. So far, I have done his work outs and upped my caloric intake by 250%, which he doesn’t recommend, but he also does not NOT recommend. I may be the only person you ever meet who gains weight while training for a long distance footrace. I’d be happy to sign autographs at the end of the summer.
4. Bonnie: Bonnie is my GPS system. She gets me from A to B to C and since I’m usually lost, she is key to my survival for the summer. I especially appreciate her soothing voice and when I miss a turn, she doesn’t, like many other GPS systems (ahem, Garmyn), do this passive aggressive “Recalculating” that makes you feel horrible and like a giant failure. She just recalculates. I appreciate that about her. It’s nice to have a voice to ride to work with.
5. The Family: will not be making any appearances in this blog because they all suck and none of them are visiting me. Except Doctor Brother, who is visiting and therefore, I like. I also give exceptions to Traveling Brother, who is in France and therefore, is excused from visitation. Mom is also excused because she dropped me off and may in fact, be picking me up. Therefore, just Cliff sucks. You hear me, Cliff?
6. Boyfriend!: Boyfriend! works in Michigan and as a result, we are 700ish miles and a timezone apart. This is quite tragic, as you can imagine, because we used to live seven houses away from each other. I probably could have picked up his wifi signal if I’d tried hard enough. Now, I’m stuck on Netgear-MN. Ahhh, the turmoils of young adulthood.
7. The Company-I’m not interested in losing my job over a blog that has approximately four readers, but to make it snappy, I work at a company that manufactures things that I don’t understand.
8. Dinkytown: Dinkytown is the part of the U that I live in. It’s kind of like Michigan State had a one night stand with University of Michigan, and out popped Dinkytown. It’s green, but urban, and it has a Potbelly’s and a Subway, so overall, I’m a pretty happy camper.
I suppose that wraps up today’s entry. I look forward to updating you on my extremely interesting and important life as an intern. And if you know anyone who’s interested in marrying me purely because I’m cute and will let me stay home and never lift a finger, hook me up.