Much “adieu” about college

Last Sunday was my graduation ceremony. Despite my best efforts to sit next to my good friend Tommy T, fate was a fickle lady that morning. We ended up getting split up, he in the row in front of me, sitting on the exact opposite aisle. Such is life.

 

The following day we decided to finalize my graduation by completing another tradition, the throwing of the shoes. Monday morning, Scotty and I headed over to West Bank to hurl an old pair of my shoes into a tree. Not just any tree, but a very specific, very special, shoe tree.

Nobody really knows why the shoe tree got started, but I felt like graduation was cause enough for me to join in on the fun. Scott, with camera at the ready, snapped photos as I chucked my old Sketchers into the shoe tree.

He was still snapping photos as my shoes bounced off of the limb I was aiming for and plummeted to the landscaped underpass below. I figured that I couldn’t give up that easily, so we went down beneath the bridge to collect the shoes and rethink our strategy. Note my terribly pouty expression. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we were back at bridge level, it hit me that I just had to throw smarter, not harder. On the second try, I lobbed my shoes up to the very tippy-top of the tree.

 

They landed on the top-most branch, wrapping themselves securely around it.

I felt pretty good about that second toss. Even if I hadn’t caught them on that branch, there would have been every other branch below it for them to land upon.

I think the message of this story pretty much sums up what I’ve learned in my time at the U of M. 

If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Rethink your strategy, and aim higher than you did the first time. As long as you have the heart to keep trying, you can’t lose.

A relaxed finals week

It’s been a calm week for me. It’s the middle of finals week here at the U of M, and I’ve got only one test left before I’m done with college for a while. I’ve been using the down time I’ve had this week to fill out some paperwork for my new job and take a trip to some of the various lakes and parks and things around Minneapolis.

First of all, I would like to announce that the cherry (of the famous spoonbridge and cherry scultpure in the Minneapolis sculpture garden) has been returned to its home after spending the winter being cleaned and repainted. I realize this is old news for some of you, but I just found out about it not too long ago.

Secondly, my friend Amy from my Industrial Organization course  (which I’ve now completed) and I went all around town on a pizza eatin’, ice cream tastin’, lake viewin’ adventure. We had originally intended to see Minnehaha falls, but stupid me missed the exit got all turned around. But, we made the best of it and had a productive day of relaxation anyway.  Oh yeah, and you should definitely get a pizza at Fat Lorenzo’s next time you’re in the neighborhood.

Last but not least, I returned to Lake Harriet today for a little bit of afternoon sailing. It was a pretty gusty afternoon, but I managed it all ok and returned the boat in one piece (mostly).

I’ll be graduating this Sunday, so you’ll be getting some pictures of that next week. Happy Thursday, everybody!

I’m a real boy!

There are two things you need to know about me: 1) I’m graduating in a week, and 2) I just got a job. A real job. A real person job – like the kind that actual adults have. That means I a real person now.

I feel kind of like a scared version of Pinocchio.

For a while there, I felt as if I had been swallowed a figurative ‘Monstro’ of responsibilties to make sure I could keep my head above water after graduation. But, the similarities go further than that.

I mean, Pinocchio and I are generally smiley people, we have larger than average noses, and we’ve both been transformed into real people. The key difference of course, is that Pinocchio spent his childhood wishing to become a member of the human world, whereas I’ve tried to make a concerted effort to delay my emergence into the grown-up world.

But, I suppose now is as good of a time as any to admit I’m not a kid anymore. I’m just glad that I didn’t have to have that frightening roller coaster ride where I make an ass of myself first.

Truth be told, I’m thrilled to have gotten the job and I’m excited to see where these post-college years will lead me. I’ve still got finals and whatnot, but I’ll keep the updates coming. Thanks for checkin’ in.

Oh, and PS…

The job is with a re-insurance broker here in the Twin Cities. I’ll be using my econ degree to do risk analysis, along with various other number crunching tasks.

My family was a crucial part of finding this job, so I’d just like to send out a big shout out to all you Jiminy Crickets who helped me with the job hunt. Thanks, dudes!