Or something like that.

Most of my time recently has been devoted to fighting the losing battle against allergies. I find that, ironically, they’re worse when I’m inside. And they’re actually not so bad during the day as when I wake up.

“Oh, look at that! The sun is shining. It’s going to be a great—“

[Suddenly unable to breathe through nose]

“Crap.”

“Is that blood?”

—-

In other news, my internship at the State Capitol is in full swing. I went down to hear Congressman Tim Walz address Senate DFLers. He delivered an excellent speech, at one point likening politics to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a comparison I’ve always enjoyed.

I also had to write a response to a ten-year-old who had written a letter to the office. It was actually very sweet: in 3rd-grader handwriting, he had asked us to keep in mind children less fortunate than him. More challenging, however, was writing a letter in words a kid could understand. Not the easiest transition from technical write-ups on coal plant moratorium statutes. I kept trying to figure out things I could compare politics to, things a kid his age would know. Do kids still like Digimon?

“Just as Agumon had to Digivolve into WarGreymon to protect the group and fight the evil Digimon, the Democrats continue to fight the lies and hypocrisy perpetuated by the conservative media.”

Maybe not.

By Mesa, I’m not talking about the land formation (though it would be interesting if I was). I’m actually referring to Mesa Pizza by the Slice, a happening little eatery in the heart of Dinkytown (and luckily, just a few blocks away from my apartment).

Dinkytown, for the uninitiated, is the name of the section of Minneapolis roughly northeast of the University of Minnesota’s East Bank campus. As you might expect, the neighborhood is home to many college students (such as myself) and local businesses that cater to said students. Cool bit of trivia to tell your friends: Bob Dylan got his start by playing guitar in Dinkytown, and according to legend, rented a room above the renowned Loring Pasta Bar. Even today one will occasionally bump into a street performer jamming to a Dylan song.

If you ever inexplicably find yourself in Minneapolis without anything to do, Dinkytown is excellent for dining and drinking. And Mesa tops all of them.

Did you ever love pizza so much as a kid that you wondered why all your food couldn’t come in pizza form? Well, Mesa is your answer: yes, yes it can. Mesa offers over three dozen styles of pizza, ranging from stuff you’ve heard of (Meat Lover’s, Hawaiian) to stuff you will never hear of again (Philly Cheesesteak, Guacamole Burrito). Mesa’s trademark, however, is its addictive Mac & Cheese pizza. The contents are exactly what you’d think: bread, cheese, and macaroni noodles. Amazing stuff, and unforgettable once you’ve had it.

Actually, I’ve never really understood that phrase. If you have lots of good news, aren’t you going to tell everyone, and maybe even brag about it? In contrast, if you don’t her from someone, it’s probably because 1) the person doesn’t want to talk to you, or 2) the person is too busy to talk. I think a better phrase might be “no news is an implicit understanding that the person in question is being subjected to all sorts of back-breaking work.”

Nah, not catchy enough.

But I’d like to assure the 7 people reading this of the following facts:

1)    I am still alive.

2)    My sanity is, more or less, intact. Except for that horrible eye twitch. Always, the eye twitch.

3)    No, I am not getting enough sleep.

4)    Most importantly, I still mostly like (nearly all) of you.

Now that we’ve got that cleared up, let’s delve into the details of my life for the past several months!

First, it turned cold, then it tuned really cold. Then it turned eerily cold. Then it turned you-know-the-earth-is-overcrowded-when-people-willingly-live-in-places-like-this cold. But now, it’s turned warm again! I’m writing this outside, in beautiful 65 degree weather.

Secondly, I’ve still been working with the University Film Club. We made a short film for a 24-hour film competition (the contest lasts 24 hours, not the film) last week. Check it out in the post above this one.

Thirdly, despite my best efforts to try new stuff while 1000 miles away from home, I’ve gravitated toward politics again. (“Just when I think I’m out, they draw me back in!”) But that’s okay. In exchange for the continual tarnishing of my soul, I get to work at the State Capitol two days a week in one of the most important offices. I feel like a kid during the American Revolution or something; all of these grown-ups around me are making important decisions for Minnesota’s future, and I get to help by copying and researching and stuff, but I can only somewhat follow what’s going on because I haven’t lived in the tundra for too long. Fun, though.

And in a separate deal, I traded 4 hours of sleep per night and a 2011 draft pick to help out on the RT Rybak for Governor campaign. For those of you so unfortunate as to not know who RT Rybak is, he is the third-term mayor of Minneapolis and a candidate for Governor. He was the first mayor in the country to endorse Barack Obama for president, and chaired the Minnesota arm of his campaign. He is also one of the only mayors in history to crowd-surf at a concert. Really, it’s tough to describe RT Rybak without the accompanying adjectives of “awesome” or “bodacious.”

Of course, in Minnesota, political races are far more complex and intricate, because of course they would be. Virtually every candidate running for somewhat significant public office competes in a series of caucuses and conventions to win his or her party’s endorsement. Remember back to the 2008 delegate-by-delegate war between Obama and Clinton, and now picture that system as ten times more intricate and confusing. Or, as Drew Carey once said on another subject, “everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.” The goal is to win a certain percentage of ballots cast by delegates at the state convention, most of whom are elected by a series of local conventions. The winner must then still compete in a primary election, but with the benefit of the party endorsement. A candidate could skip the nomination process and just run in the primary, which happens nearly four months afterwards, but custom dictates that no high-profile candidate attempts such a low blow.

Until this year, of course. Former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton, and a few lesser-known candidates, are eschewing the nomination system entirely, instead concentrating on the primary.

In any case, exciting times as usual!

I’ll try to snap some pictures from various things going on in the Twin Cities, so I can make you all even more jealous.

Northeast Ohio person: “Holy God, it’s 30 degrees outside! Better grab a jacket before my body turns blue.”

Twin Cities person: “Holy God, it’s 30 degrees outside! Where’d I put my flipflops?”

Seriously. [If I had managed to snap a picture of someone wearing shorts, it would've gone here. But I decided 1) waiting around for such a person would've taken awhile, and 2) surreptitiously taking a photo of said person would be too awkward, even for me. Just take my word that there are people who are actually dressed like this.]

As weird as that sounds, I guess we should just chalk it up to acclimation. Winter makes us Twin Cities-ers a hardy bunch; temperatures significantly below 0 F are the norm, not the cruel exception. And I guess, after that, any weather above freezing is like walking on the scalding surface of the Sun. It definitely felt like that for me, who was too conscious of his former feelings toward cold weather to change into shorts, but who definitely ditched the jacket on his way out.

Other news and notes:

–I took my first Twin Cities trip to a doctor last week. The doc had me undergo a CT Scan. The results didn’t show anything to be concerned about, but the scan did reveal that I have what is called an “accessory spleen.” According to the doctor, and confirmed by the Internets, an accessory spleen is a little ball of spleen tissue attached to, but apart from, the main spleen. That’s right, America: I have a second, baby, spleen.

–I had a conversation with my dad last week. He recently joined Facebook, and was disappointed that more and more people were trying to friend him.

Dad: “I’m getting friend requests from your friends, from your brother’s friends, and from people I don’t even think I know.”

Me: “Yeah, but that’s the objective of Facebook. You’re supposed to collect as many friends as possible, so you can update them all on everything you do in the day.”

Dad: “I don’t know. I feel like I’m just collecting Pokemon cards. But I keep getting the run-of-the-mill ones. You know how there’s, like, a super-rare card in each pack? Yeah. I need some holographic friends.”

Amen, Dad.

It's like that.

So, blogging regularly fell by the wayside pretty fast. Don’t blame yourself; it’s (probably) not even your fault. But in the hierarchy of my life, “blogging” is many rungs below such activities as “working,” “school,” “sleeping,” and even “having fun” (it does, however, decisively beat out “quilt-making”).

Anyway, the good news is that, while I haven’t added any new posts recently, it doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on potential posts. In fact, I have about 5 half-finished stories for this blog. Hopefully I can get those out soon.

It threatened to, then it didn’t, then it got cold all of a sudden, then it was almost nice enough to dare me to wear shorts, but now it’s happened, on this Monday, October 12.

The weather has turned to suck.

It’s easiest for me to describe the weather here if I ask you to visualize a cliff. August was the time period when you’re still on top of the cliff. Labor Day is when you jump off the cliff, but by some amazing stroke of luck get hooked by a stray root poking out of the side of the cliff. And October 12th is when the root breaks, sending you into a very cold and snowy chasm. I looked out my window this morning, only to come to two realizations: “Oh my God, it’s snowing!” and “How many layers do I have on? Two? That’s not going to be enough. Dammit.” A few minutes later, I emerged from my (warm) apartment feeling like a ball of cloth.

Morbid? Yeah, probably. If it is, sorry about that. But the weather here has been that definite, like someone flipped a switch from “awesome” to “crap.”

This makes more sense in context, but probably is funnier out of context.

Anyway, sorry about the lack of posts. Things have been pretty busy on my end, and while I still have ample amounts of free time, I mostly use that time to vegetate in front of my television. The weather aside, I’ve found that this adventure has been pretty draining, both physically and mentally. The physical component of (for lack of a better term) feeling like I’ve been hit by a giant hairy truck is easier for me to understand: I went from a place where people drove their cars to things less than a mile away, to a place where everyone walks. I spend about an hour every day just walking everywhere I need to go; it’s a good change of pace, but it does take a physical toll.

But the source of the mental exhaustion is harder for me to pin down. Despite my expectations, the classes here aren’t any tougher (yet). And the layout of the campus, and the city, isn’t hard to learn. Instead, I think it stems from the almost-unlimited opportunities this place has to offer. I started scouting internships for spring semester over the weekend, and I’ve already found three I would love to do; I would settle for any of them. Had I been in Northeast Ohio, there’s a 99.2% chance I would have ended up interning somewhere I didn’t enjoy, doing work I didn’t want to do. Compared to where I was, the possibilities are endless, and I’m excited to be here, but also nervous. The scope of the Twin Cities means I won’t be able to do everything, or have every experience possible, whereas in Northeast Ohio, that was the case. I had done pretty much everything; there was nothing left for an encore.

But that’s enough about my mental anguish. Let’s see, what are the other highlights:

• I saw the Minnesota Twins take down the Detroit Tigers in a 12-inning tiebreaker game and advance to the playoffs. The best game I’ve seen in person, without question (apologies to Game 1 of the 1995 ALDS between the Indians and Red Sox). I’m working on a full post about this, but need to get around to uploading some pictures first.
• I am now gainfully employed, as a fundraiser for a pretty famous human rights organization.
• I went to an advance screening of A Serious Man, the new Coen Brothers movie. It was shot almost entirely in the Twin Cities, and features a cast of virtual unknowns (except for a supporting role that’s played by Richard Kind, the actor who portrayed Harvey the hypochondriac on Scrubs). I would consider placing it in my five favorite Coen Brothers movies. See it if you get a chance.

I’ll be back with another post later this week. Stay warm!

Exhibit A: My grocery list from today.

1   Plain Milk Chocolate M&M’s   $5.49
1   L’Oven Fresh White Sliced Bread   $1.89
1   Paper Plates 9″   $3.79 (this is slightly misleading, because it seems like a sensible thing to buy, when in reality I just don’t want to bother with washing dishes)
2   Mountain Dew Code Red   $9.58
1   Hefty Easy Grip Red Plastic Party Cups, 16 oz   $4.59
1   Cadbury Chocolate Bar Dairy Milk   $1.89
1   Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream   $4.19
1   Kraft Finely Shredded Mild Cheddar Cheese   $3.59

Eh, I’ll learn. Hopefully.

And even when we went, our focus wasn’t on the game as much as it was about interacting with the other kids in the student section. Fights, Silly String, make-out sessions, people proudly displaying posters of mostly nude men, accidents with slushies–the whole gamut of human interaction played out in a rickety old grandstand.

I’ve also been to Stambaugh Stadium (Youngstown State) and Dix Stadium (Kent State), but neither of those is a colossal structure (and in the case of Dix Stadium, is just really depressing). I also vaguely remember going to Cleveland to see a football game when I was really young, though I can’t remember the circumstances (and that’s probably for the best).

In other words, my trip yesterday to see the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers break in their new digs at TCF Bank Stadium was my first time in a huge football stadium watching a pretty momentous game.

People were especially excited for the game against Air Force; not only was it the Golden Gophers’ first home game in the new stadium, it was also their first real home game in almost 30 years. In 1981, the Gophers decided to move across town and play in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, a multi-purpose domed stadium that also housed the Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings. It seemed like a good idea, until the 1990s, when everyone collectively realized the future probably wasn’t going to involve living and playing in large white domes. It also, you know, took them away from their support base of 50,000 students, most of whom weren’t willing to make the trek to see a sub-par team play in a crappy stadium.

And there was good reason to be excited: the stadium is excellent. For one, it’s the newest football stadium in the Big Ten Conference by a good 60 years. A state-of-the-art facility should hopefully be a draw in recruiting for a team that has to play in the same conference as Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, and Wisconsin. For another, TCF Bank Stadium isn’t more than a 5-minute walk from campus (and a short walk from most college housing). It’s built to be a gathering place, and its location fits the bill.

Like I said, I’m not used to huge football stadiums, enthusiastic crowds, or even lines to get in. But, as you would expect, the game was sold out, and the several thousand student season-ticket holders had to enter through Gate C. The student section takes up the entire goalpost area on the opposite the field as the giant scoreboard (3rd largest in college football). Immediately on entering Gate C, the fan is faced with an egregiously long and steep flight of stairs leading up to the main concourse. Think of it as something out of MC Esther’s nightmares. Now picture 5,000 students–all wearing bright yellow shirts–making an energetically crazed dash for the top, as though they were running from aliens, or a huge tidal wave, or an M. Night Shyamalan movie or something.

The concourse contains a few generic souvenir shops and food stands, and the sight lines of the field from within the concourse aren’t good. What struck me the most about TCF Bank Stadium, however, was how intimate it felt. The stadium holds 50,805 spectators, and from the outside the place looks to be a labyrinth. But it feels more intimate and accommodating than Dix Stadium, and that doesn’t even have half the capacity as TCF Bank. I stood a few rows from the very top, and even from there, I could see the field perfectly and felt pretty close to the action.

(By the way, we have to come up with a cool nickname for TCF Bank Stadium, even though I think the name is impervious to any nickname upgrade. At least other crappy sponsor stadium names can be shortened into something better. Lincoln Financial Field is the “Linc,” Gillette Stadium is the “Razor,” and Xcel Energy Center is the “X.” What can be done with TCF Bank Stadium? You can’t even shorten it to “TCF” because that makes no sense. I can imagine a bunch of head guys at TCF trying to figure out the least nickname-able name imaginable, so everyone is forced to say the name of their business properly.)

The game went on, complete with all the enthusiasm accorded to the first home game in a beautiful new stadium. Minnesota beat Air Force, 20-13, and the game was great throughout. And what’s more, I had a chance to observe Minnesota students and their unique ways of rooting on the Gophers. Two ways in particular stuck with me. First, there’s a pretty common chant of the university name. Students begin by spelling out M-I-N-N-E-S-O-T-A, then quickly yell “Minnesota!” twice, and then…well, that’s it. The rhythm set the chant up for an impressive finish, but nothing came after the second “Minnesota!” I don’t know if this happens all the time, and in fact, some students seemed to be confused by the chant, following the second “Minnesota!” yelp with verbal perplexity, like a long, drawn-out “Uhhh…” It’s like someone passed out sheets of paper before the game with instructions for this chant on it, but the photocopier cut off the last line.

The second show of support happened after Minnesota kicked a field goal in the first quarter to take a 3-0 lead. The Minnesota kicker was about to kick the ball to the returning Air Force team, when a girl sitting somewhere in the student section yelled out “Keys!” One by one, every student took out his or her keys and started dangling them. I think the end goal was to make noise to distract the opposing team, but most people weren’t even focused on making noise: they just were dangling their keys gently, as if they were all taunting invisible people looking at, and desperately wanting, some keys. Again, I don’t understand this. I think it would have been more effective if this had been done when Air Force was kicking to Minnesota, rather than the other way around; I would guess it takes more concentration to kick the ball than to run up the field with it. I also think it would have been more effective had our opponents been cats. But it’s just another thing I’ve learned about Minnesota and its people.

Ahh, Minneapolis. Go Gophers!

[All joking aside, I'd like to say, right off the bat, I feel embarrassed. This was supposed to be a blog that I would update constantly, at least once a day. But as you might be able to pick up, my habits are not well-suited for daily updates and regular word quotas. Like all of the other blogs I've began with good intentions, I tend to update heavily over the span of a few days, followed by weeks of static. So I apologize (to the three or four of my devoted fans reading this), and hope to do better in the future. I'll beg off by saying that between starting classes and battling a terrible cold, I haven't had much time to productively stare into a computer screen.]

I would ordinarily do my best to recap the happenings of the past week in excruciating detail, but I don’t think it’s needed. For one, you don’t want to read about me waking up in the morning (with the exception of my most devoted fans), and for another, my memory is shot anyway, so I don’t think I could recount that much detail.

Instead, I’ll quickly go through a list of observations I’ve had from this past week:

1. This place is HUGE. My old school isn’t tiny, but this dwarfs my previous experience. What surprises me isn’t the number of people–I’ve been to a lot of cities before–but the expansiveness of the campus. For those not familiar with the layout of the U, the campus is divided into three parts: an East Bank and a West Bank in Minneapolis (the campus is divided by the Mississippi River) and a satellite area in downtown St. Paul. I haven’t been to the St. Paul part; I’m told that that’s where they send all the rejects (just kidding). But there seems to be no end to the place. Every building has another section, another floor, and another exit to another part of campus. Think of it as a university-sized TARDIS.
2. Going along with Point 1, the campus is beautiful. I’m not one to get excited about architecture (in fact, that might have been the most boring sentence fragment I’ve ever written in my life), but it’s nice to know someone put effort (and money) into the place. Accordingly, the classrooms are furnished and comfortable (if not brand new), the grounds are well-maintained, there are enough tables and chairs outside and inside for everyone, and it’s just a nice place to be.
3. There’s stuff going on everywhere. My old school had over 20,000 undergrads, but you wouldn’t have noticed. Most people there went to class, went back to their dorms or apartments, ventured out some unspecified time at night for food, and went home on Friday. No one got involved with a group or activity. Even the fraternities and sororities have trouble keeping membership up. It was sad that students took so little interest in the world around them (and scary to think what would happen when they entered the real world). Here, it’s entirely different. There are hundreds of groups, representing any interest anyone might ever have. Any given day there are students collecting signatures or donations for some cause. This place is, to put it bluntly, alive.
4. The students here are looked after. A good example: I went to pick up my UCard yesterday. Like most universities, the U issues a plastic ID card to all of its students; the U calls its version the UCard. It took no more than two minutes for the process to complete. Everyone at the UCard office was professional and knowledgeable. With the UCard, students are eligible for discounts both on-and off-campus, entry into events, and it can even be converted into a bank card. In other words, the UCard service is straightforward and beneficial for students. And I can see it elsewhere: this university places an importance on student success and comfort. The student union has a wide variety of places to eat, leather lounge chairs, and free essential services like a walk-in clinic. And it doesn’t shut down on the weekends! Hell, just the fact that students want to spend time there is an absolutely new experience to me. I can’t help but juxtapose this with what happens with students at my old school. I don’t want to be critical, so I’ll use an anecdote that should explain things. My old school’s student population is almost entirely comprised of people who live within a short driving distance. My old school does little to no marketing to students outside this radius. And in terms of difficulty of acceptance, quality of education and location in quiet suburbia, it has no competitors. In other words, my old school benefits from a student population that mostly has no second choice of college. Knowing this, how much effort would you think this school puts into making sure students are happy, content and learning? Exactly.
5. The people here are intelligent. If it seems like common sense to call students at a university intelligent, trust me, it’s not. It’s definitely not. One of the things I pride myself on is the ability to get along with just about anyone. And over my 20 years on this planet, I’ve had lots of experience. 95 percent of the time over my life, I’ve been the smartest person in the room or the class or the conversation. If I wasn’t the smartest, I was certainly the most dedicated and most conscientious. And if that sounds arrogant, well, I guess it is, but believe me, it’s tough being better at something than the people around you. It’s lonely at the top. But the bottom line is that I had to develop ways to get along with the rest of society and not be ostracized as a nerd or a conceited jackass. I would never flaunt my intelligence; I would never make a big fuss about my grades; I would never correct people when they made mistakes (at least, not right away); I would always wait at least 5 seconds before answering a teacher’s question so it wouldn’t look like I knew everything. It’s a system that has worked for me for years, and it suited me for my environment. Now? I don’t think it applies, and as a result, my worldview is being badly shaken. As I walk through hallways, I hear words like “atrocious” and “concise” being spoken in everyday conversation. When I sit to my classes, I see other people getting involved in conversations, and asking intelligent questions. It’s a landscape I’ve wanted to find myself in for years, and one I wish I had been in from the start. But the ways in which I deal with others will have to change. Am I strong enough to make that change? I think so, but it will take awhile.
6. Oh, and my apartment’s awesome. Just sayin’.