i like to wonder.

(just more of what I have been up to...)
i always think of good titles and things to write about while I'm at work, or not at the computer and then I forget them by the time I sit down to write...Then I'll remember them later. Anyway..hopefully this isn't too boring.

I miss school. Luther. Decorah. Part of me really wishes I was heading down there and going back to class and learning more, being around my friends again, hanging out in the coffee shop on campus or drinking beers down at T-Bock's (it's wednesday night... that's $3 pitcher night :-) ) sigh... But another part of me is really ready to start something new. I think I wouldn't miss Luther as much if I had a real job and wasn't living at home. Things are moving slowly with the job search, but it will happen. I've decided to put the job search on hold a bit and search for volunteer and internship possibilities which may help me land a 'real' job later. I'm still baffled as to why one place I applied to volunteer at never got back to me. I suppose I can email them and send in another application. I've started to make a list of places I applied to and am hoping that they will have volunteer or internship opportunities. Since I have the Byerly's deli job at the moment I have the time to actually do some volunteer or internship work. It would also be a plus to have that going on since I can get really bored during the day before I go to work at the deli. And the deli i think would be pretty flexible about my hours. Here's hoping someone will want me to volunteer for them :-)

speaking of work (which is all I ever blog about now) ...it's getting better. I'm starting to get the hang of things a little more, and my coworkers are being very helpful. The customers seem to like me just fine too. I only had to work for four hours tonight and not until four this afternoon. It was quite amazing how zoned out I could still be at 4pm. :-P Happily the hours went by very quickly. I am also enjoying my coworkers more. I'm getting along with them better. I think I'm getting into the 'loop' a little bit more, which I like because that means there are more people to talk to and joke around with. The customers are constantly entertaining, and both them and my coworkers keep me wondering ;-) I like to wonder. I'm a psych person... so people may think I analyze, but I like to consider it 'wondering' or 'thinking' or 'considering'. :-) Anyway...i'm constantly learning new things every day about how things run, and how people function. My favorite customer today was the lady who wanted to know what would keep at a bbq. I feel like she had never been to one and I didn't know what to tell her. :-P Ooh... and one last thing about work.. I got to clean the cheese slicer yesterday! w00t! let me tell you what excitement that was! haha. It's kind of hard ...especially doing it for the first time and being terrified of cutting yourself while trying to get all the crusted-on cheese off of the blade! eek! No worries i still have ten fingers and all of my limbs.

besides work and missing school... nothing else is going on. I haven't seen anyone in a long time and am hopefully going to remedy that soon. I haven't seen Natalie really in two weeks! :-( And it's been ages since I've even chatted to some friends. Hopefully I will see people this weekend and next. I like friends. I miss them. I hope more come to visit soon! :-)

that is all.

crosswords

I love having Sundays off of work. I hope a get a lot more! After working 25 hours in four days i was happy to have a break. I spent the morning racking my brain for answers to the sunday paper's crossword puzzle. Shit it can be hard. It's a fun activity to do with my dad though :-P I spent most of last night trying to figure out the rest of Saturday's crossword...i was really mad at it and at the internet last night, and then I started thinking about work and got mad about work. Weird huh? Why was I mad at work? Well... I like it I really do, the people are nice and so are most of the customers, but sometimes i feel like my coworkers, the ones around my age, just don't seemt to enthused by me being there. The two people I have liked the most so far are older women. They're way cool. One has similar interests as me...well she used to (maybe still does) work with Chemically dependent people. And then there's Sue (her name tag reads 'Suzie Q.). She's sassy and funny. I like it. She asks me about life and what I'm doing. I like her. Everyone else is nice too, don't get me wrong ( Barb the cheese lady always smiles and says hello to me..:-) )but yeah the kids around my age I think are mostly high schoolers, or at least younger than me to an extent. I don't know I think I'm a little socially awkward at first anyway, and well they've all been working at the deli longer than me so clearly they know eachother better. I think maybe we're all just socially awkward at work. I dunno, at least Jacob introduced himself to me yesterday, he was missing his name tag, so that was good to at least know his name so I didn't have to call him 'hey you' if needed. Anyway I got this silly idea last night that the rest of the younger kids don't like me. It's probably really ridiculous, but I don't know...they're not that friendly and well i feel like a complete idiot when I ask them questions because they already know most of the stuff. Meh. That's all i've got about work (which seems to be the only thing that I write about lately...)

Job searching hasn't gone that well lately. I got depressed yesterday while I was trying to get stuff together. I apparently had other things on my mind. I'm trying to write another cover letter for a different job with an organization that I interviewed with earlier. I don't want to come off as a flake and turn in the same cover letter or one that is too similar. Sigh...such is life. I just feel bad when I don't change my cover letter much. I realized that I should also put the deli clerk position on my resume now too. sigh... so much to do. :-P

I was somewhat productive today...even if it didn't have to do with writing cover letters and resumes... I returned a gift (bed sheets...too flowery and bright!) Then almost bought more pants for work...but didn't and instead bought a nice shirt, the Gnarls Barkley cd, and the Aristocrats dvd. Good purchases I think. Then I brought some school books to the second hand book shop to try to get some money for them. I got a whopping $5. I know I paid way more for those bastards... oh well... the $5 got me some coffee at the shop next door which is where I am currently writing from. Sadly I finally gave in and am paying money to use the internet for two hours. I can no longer pick up the signal from Panera next door. Damnit!
Not much else has been going on. I haven't hung out with anyone lately. Have been spending most days and nights to myself since Shannon left. Everyone I think is getting ready for school again and what not. I dunno. I enjoyed working on the crossword and just chilling watching a movie last night which i am sure is what I will do tonight too. I don't work until 4 tomorrow, not that that really means anything... I guess I get to sleep in again. nice.

salads and slicers

Yesterday was day two at work and things went fine. I actually used the meat and cheese slicer. One of the meat slicers acutally broke while I was trying to use it.:-P It's hard to get exactly a pound, or half a pound... i reckon this will take practice.oh well. The guy who is in charge of the deli was there during my shift, he's also the guy who hired me, and it made me nervous... i didn't want to screw up horribly. I feel like he is the guy you aspire to be behind the deli. He knows everything about the food, how everything works and he's really friendly. I doubt I'll ever get to that point but it's nice to know that he likes his job and takes it seriously.

Big storms came through Minnesota yesterday. THere was HUGE hail in different parts of the state and even tornadoes! None of th at hit the cities though which i'm thankful for, but i can only imagine the storm damage. Well I actually got a bit of a description of it while I was at work. It was getting down to the last hour or so and this man who works for Home Depot is one of the guys that goes out to asses storm damage. YIKES! He just kept talking and talking about what the weather had been like and what he could look forward to for the next month... i guess he'll be pretty damn busy. He was a nice fellow and although I couldn't hear half of what he said, i just smiled and nodded and tried to serve him his food without dropping it. There are many interesting characters that come into the store. I have enjoyed the few that have stopped to talk so far.

Well hopefully soon something more interesting will happen in my life other than scooping up salads and slicing meat. But let's face it the most interesting part of my summer is gone. Amber came and went and so did Shannon. I have no one to entertain or be entertained by constantly while at home.

the only other thing that I can think of that's been on my mind every once in awhile is the idea of a movie critc. I want to know how they got the job to criticise movies and peoples' work when they may have never even been in a movie, or been involved in making a film... I dunno... How did they get that job?!
yeah that's all. I'm going to go watch The View now.

Coopers, Shannon and work.

I wrote a few days ago to update but clearly it did not make it on here. The basis of that post was "OMG! I found Coopers in Minneapolis; My life is complete" -- The end. :-)

Well besides finding Coopers, Shannon left today and that made me sad. Not overly sad but a bit at least! It was so nice to have him visit! I went to my first day of work at the deli and it went just fine, but it was eight hours of standing on my feet. I did drop a cold salad in the morning that went over the counter and luckily did not hit the lady who had asked for it. Oh yeah I get to wear a silly hat. It's not too bad, but still kind of silly. It doesn't really stay in one place. I was terrified to even try the slicer today. I got the low down on everything mostly, but it would have been really nice to have one person go through everything with me...which didn't happen but everyong was pretty nice in helping me out when I had questions. I'm sure I screwed up a few times but no customers really complained and I got a good hold on doing the salads since it's pretty much all I did today. But good ness! so many salads and different meats and chesses! It's crazy! whew!

Dad picked me up from work and as I was leaving I was thinking that I'd get to go home to see Shannon. Oh wait, ( I reminded myself) I took him to the airport at an ungodly hour this morning :-( Sigh.. It was nice to have an Aussie around and be reminded of the fun times in Adelaide and to reconnect. I look forward to January when Shannon says he will be passing through again. Until then I guess the Coopers will have to console me, and so far it is doing its job well. Nothing like some Coopers after an eight hour shift at the deli... ahhh... relaxing.

I can't say there is too much more going on. Most of you read Shannon's blog now so you'll get an update from him about what we did the past couple days. I think a lot of it was drinking alcohol and watching movies. We went to the sculpture garden in the city on a very nice evening and went to the Mall of America the other day, but the last few days were pretty chill. Oh yeah we met Sunil's friend Jen. She was very nice. Um but we were mostly bums for the past few days before Shannon left. I thought of a billion things we could do though after he left. We never got around to the biscuits and gravy and I didn't show him any other part of Minnesota ( up North is beautiful) plus there's great historic stuff around , but whatever I think he's fine with it all.

And i think that's it. My feet hurt and I'm too tired to think. Lucky that I work at 2 pm tomorrow. Yay for sleeping in!
and that's all i've got for now.

it's not that different

well no one has bugged me to update the past few weeks. But while Shannon was talking to Shannon on skype, schwarz mentioned I hadn't updated in awhile. I must say that I am quite flattered ( i think is the word i am looking for) that schwarz still reads my blog.

Anyway, most of you read Mason's blog probably and have already read up on his adventures here in the U.S. So I feel as though it's kind of ridiculous to re-write what he has already written since he's been here in Minneapolis. But i will share the highlights that I think are quite fun.

I think the funniest thing since shannon has been here was his reactions to the products in the supermarket and his excitement and utter confusion, and wonder at the idea of cheese in a can. :-) 'Easy Cheese' as it is called or as my siblings and I called it when we were litte "squeezy cheese", is ... well cheese in a can. Shannon was quite baffled by this idea wondering if it came out all foamy like whip cream does from a can. It's hard to explain the consistency of Easy Cheese. It's not foamy like whipped cream. It's kind of slimey in a way... ummmm like...well it's not a liquid , and it's not like ketchup (tomato sauce for u aussies ;-) ) but it's not very solid either like real cheese. It's somewhere in between. Anyway we got some cheese in a can and brought it home for Shannon to taste. As some of you might know it was quite a spectacle. Pictures were taken. My family sat around to watch... i'm sure the dog was even excited. I think he liked it, but really it's quite salty and the crackers we topped were pretty salty too. Besides his reaction to the Easy Cheese, while in the supermarket he 'oooed and awwwwed' at the crazy things we have here that he had not see over in Australia. Needless to say it was all quite entertaining.

Well besides that excitement i've tried to be a good host and have showed shannon some of the sites around here. Went to the art museum the other day, have had dinners with my family, and got him heaps drunk at my friend Rob's. I have never seen Shannon that drunk before so it was a new experience for me. I pressured him to drink water over and over again and then finally we both passed out. Back to the museum bit though.. i have to say that I am just crazily impressed by art. I don't know how people think of these things, and how much patience they must have to create these beautiful works of art. Some I just don't understand. And overall i just cant help but look at them forever...paintings from hundreds of years ago still in good condition and done SO well. I really enjoy the ones that have to do with religion and bible stories. Particularily with Jesus. There are quite a few versions of stories about Jesus and it's really interesting to see how different artists portray them. I don't know...they're just REALLY interesting to me. I'm also quite amazed by marble sculpture! How did they do it! especially from ancient Greece and Rome?! it's so beautiful! I got to see what I hope is an original of 'Veiled Lady' ( i think it's lady, it might be woman, but whatever you get the idea). I have seen this sculpture, well at least a replica of it in the newest version of Pride and Prejudice and just love it. It was so awesome to see it up close and personal, well at least the head of the veiled lady. It's just... wow... how they make it look like someone is veiled in marble sculpture is beyond me and I LOVE it! I like wondering and just staring at art for long periods of time :-)

Something that was pretty funny this week was when we went to see 'Snakes on a Plane'. So funny by the way. Shannon, Natalie and I met up with my good friend Will and a group of his friends for the midnight showing. Will is in love with Shannon. Hahaha. ok so NOT really but they met on Tuesday night after my frisbee game at the bar. Will was over in Adelaide studying post grad stuff while I was there. We are frisbee buddies. I *heart* him. He is good people. Anyway... So Will LOVES Australia, of course, he dislikes very much Baseball, but loves cricket. Will proceeded to talk to Shannon about cricket and his love for the game. Because of this he decided he was in love with Shannon :-) which he told us a few nights later while we were at the movie. Well I thought it was funny anway. I laughed.

Tomorrow Shannon and I head to the Mall of America to have lunch with one of his mum's friends I think. I actually have somewhat of a shopping agenda for the mall (one store) and so it should be pretty entertaining. We have also just recently learned that one of the liquor stores around here has Cooper's! O M G! :-) Mandy who i went to school with at Luther also visited Adelaide (a year before me) and loves the Coopers! She apparently found some at this liquor store near her new place in Minneapolis! I have been to this liquor store and have not seen it... maybe I have not searched hard enough.So we have high hopes in finding Coopers tomorrow afternoon. I hope our journey will turn out successful!

i reckon that's all I have for now. Not too interesting. oh yeah... I had a birthday last week. Last Saturday. Drank beer friday, chilled with Shannon and the fam on my birthday and it was great. i got good stuff from friends and family. It was a lovely birthday. 22 does not feel that much different that 21... A lot of my friends will actually be turning 23 soon. HAHA oldies! oh well. I like being young.

oh and I had orientation this weekend for my new job. w00t! now I have to call in and schedule hours. Hmmm a task i should complete tomorrow. This also means that I need to buy new clothes and shoes to wear to work :-P bleh. Am still searching for that full time job, and h opefully it will come soon enough. I'm really looking forward to it someday! I'm rambling too much...check shannon's blog for a better update on what we've been up to. www.cheesebandits.net/things
that is all.
p.s. where have you all been?! where's the love?! ;-)

Amber's visit in a nutshell

in an effort to be less out of touch I give you this new blog entry... It hasn't even been a FULL week since the last so I reckon I am doing well.

There is not much to write about except, of course the fact that Amber is here! w00t!
We had a bit of a ... umm... fiasco?... well maybe just an issue with picking her up from the airport, but after spending a half an hour at the airport looking for her, then driving home, driving back to the airport, going to the wrong terminal, then the correct one, I finally found her and we headed back to my place. (in the process of it all there were many shitty drivers on the roads ... :-P some people should just NOT be allowed to drive). We didn't do much that night, in fact I think we just decided to go to bed after a chat ... we reckon... we don't really know...

Since Friday I have gotten Amber drunk with my friends (so fun. 'hmph' - says Amber) Of course we had heaps of fun though. My friends seem to have something against Jersey though... not quite sure what...but Amber was able to defend herself just fine. After an interesting night of beers, shots, random happenings, celebrating Josh's freedom, and having Amber told that she had an 'aussie' accent (so not true) , i sobered up and came home. The fun continued with a bit of time spent online, of which I had my first chat with Shannon's brother Troy...well it was mostly me typing for Amber who had issues with the keys. :-) She maintains that it was mostly due to the fact that she was kneeling on the floor, but I did offer her a chair... so enough said. Anyway I left her to the computer before bed and she ended up signing herself off on accident... whatever, we went to bed.

Sunday... After some yummy scrambled eggs Amber headed to the softball fields with my brother and I to watch us play a game with the friends from the night before. Although Amber did not play and instead read and watched, I think she also spent most of the time figuring out what it was that she might have said or done the night before. That and figuring out who everyone was while sober :-) (by the way she is being SUCH a good sport with this blog as she sits and watches me type it... cuz she has nothing better to do with her time... because I am not a good host and have no idea what to do with her, although she says I am and that she's had fun... i dunno.. she could be lying, but I doubt it :-) )

We came back to watch Pride and Prejudice (which she had never seen! what an outrage! ok so I'm obsessed...and maybe she's not like me :-) ) After dinner with the fam, which gave Amber the ability to really see what I am like and how my family functions (she now has one up on me... probably realizes why I am the way that I am... many many bad jokes ... i think she survived.) Natalie and Jeff came over later to meet Amber and to watch a movie. It was nice to see Jeff again because he has been in FL forever. Hopefully Amber did not get too sick of our 'gossip' talk. We watched Mirrormask, chatted awhile longer, then split... we were all pretty tired. So tired that I have a sandal missing because I am quite sure that Natalie ended up putting on one of her sandals and one of mine. I just noticed today when I had only one brown sandal and a mysterious blue one...hmmm I don't know if she has realized it yet...

Today, well today was a trip to the Mall of America. w00t! It was the one thing that Amber mentioned she wanted to see and really it's one of our only claims to fame here in Minnesota. So Natalie joined us and we drove out to it. We didn't spend much time there because none of us had much of a shopping agenda. Let's face it...we're all unemployed... (ok well Amber is only partially unemployed... ok so we all have jobs...we're just not working them yet! sounds ridiculous huh?!) we then tried for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts... Oops... me being really stupid forgot that the museum is closed on Mondays...this I also mentioned to Amber on Saturday after I checked the times that it was open. Yeah.. I'm on top of things. OH well... so we went to a bakery in Uptown and had some food and drinks and then made our way home. Amber and I watched tv, got sick of real tv and put in Clone High again to pass the time. We went out to dinner with out my family and had a nice time chatting. One of my favorite parts... Amber realizing why all the stuff on the walls was Chicago-related. The name of the restaurant is "Old Chicago" Heh. And now I am boring her with my boring life and typing of this blog. Who knows how we will fill the time tonight, probably hanging out again...we're both too god damn indecisive... but we like eachother so hanging out has been just fine. I think that is all. She leaves tomorrow afternoon for Jersey again and then I have two and a half days to figure out what to do with Shannon when he gets here. :-P I'll try harder to figure some things out... it would be terrible for me to bore a foreigner...
Yes that is all...

out of touch

wow.
almost a month and I haven't written. Not like it matters. I mean I haven't even gotten the traditional "update your blog Em!" from Melissa.

Anyway...things are well and needless to say I have been out of touch for awile. I just got busy i guess and lazy with the blog. I finally started to get interviews which have taken up my time and energy a great deal. I also made plans to visit Krista in Oregon and just got back today( i might write more about that later, but easily put...it was AWESOME! I missed her a great deal!) After getting back I went straight to a frisbee game and played in the rain. My spirits rose even more by seeing frisbee friends I hadn't seen in awhile! I was all smiles! and still am but am very very tired. There is much I can think of to write about but the fact that I am ill prepared for an interview tomorrow is nagging at me, and well this enormous lack of functioning is starting to wear me down...thus i make the trip to bed. More to come i suppose if anyone is still reading