"Below the radar, above the law"

Once again, my failure to update this blog often enough means that you're going to get a bit of a disjointed post tonight. I finished my first week of graduate school last week and went down to Minneapolis for the weekend, so that all was eventful. Last week was kind of stressful, I'm going to be honest. The first couple of days of something are always the hardest for me, I just don't adjust quickly. On Wednesday my kitchen sink just completely stopped draining, and I had a bit of a meltdown. Don't you ever just get overwhelmed by things, and then it's the stupidest little problem and you're completely immobilized? Well, ok, but I do. I tried everything to get that stupid sink unclogged and eventually I just had to give up and call my landlady, who just sent over a plumber. It was ridiculously easy.

Anyhow, Wednesday was also the Emergency Management orientation, and that was a hilarious experience. There are, let's say, a lot of personalities in our department. I have a story about racism that I probably shouldn't tell in a public forum, but if you want to hear that, you should give me a call and I will tell you. Man, I probably can't tell you any of these stories. Suffice it to say, I'm amused especially by the professors in EM.

Ok, yes, so Thursday was my last day of class for the week, and I just left right after GIS. Thursdays are great because I only have two classes, and they end before 2, and then my weekend begins. I would have left for Minneapolis on Thursday, but Samantha was having some people over for dinner on Friday, so I hung out in Fargo for an extra day. Dinner was great. It was almost all the EM folks (no Jared), plus a couple of Sociology masters students, who are great. We played games and talked about meth and told stories about the Midwest. Good times.

I left late Saturday morning. I keep putting time aside to clean my apartment, and then not cleaning my apartment, and I should really just clean it because having a clean apartment just makes me so happy, but I'm profoundly lazy. Anyway, so I drove down to Minneapolis and was at Emily's old apartment around 2:30. We moved a few things over to the new apartment she'll be sharing with Julia, and then met up with Rachel and a couple of '09 Carleton folks who kindly indulged me while I was anxious and weird. Rachel has the distinction of being my friend who is the most patient with my whining, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that about her.

Rachel, Emily, Morgan and I went out to dinner and then we grabbed Julia and went out for a weird night of dancing. Things got off to an unquestionably good start when Morgan made a subtle reference to this song:

We got drinks at sort of an Irish pub and then went to this club where there were a number of bachelorette parties and a lot of fratty guys trying to take advantage of them. Julia got the DJ to play a couple of Nelly songs, which was awesome. Julia, Emily and I left on the early side but Morgan and Rachel stayed until the bar closed, which will never not be impressive to me.

We took it easy on Sunday, for the most part. I did some homework in the morning (I'm really enjoying my reading! It's been a very pleasant surprise.) and then helped Emily move all her stuff into the new place. We went out to lunch, did a Target run, and hung out for the rest of the afternoon. After dinner we got some snacks together and watched Magic Mike, which was terrible, but was redeemed completely when our friend Mollie exclaimed, more than halfway through the movie, "Oh I know why I was confused, I thought we were watching Like Mike!" I did a little more work Monday morning, and in the afternoon we went to St. Paul for another Saints game, which was, once again, a very bizarre experience. After the game I dropped Rachel off at the airport and headed back to Fargo, without using my navigation system. I was sad to leave Minnesota, but when I was almost home I got to watch the sun setting over the fields, which is outrageously cliche, but I have to say, it was gorgeous, and I said to myself, "I can't believe I get to live here."