Things I didn't know about Grand Forks #24

This is super overdue, but, seeing as how Josh and I only complain about how cold we are these days, you need to know something. When Josh left at the end of August, I was hating Grand Forks pretty intensely. Then October came, and I had the most beautiful day I've ever seen. I had a moment walking from my car to the office where I felt like my heart would burst with gratitude because Fall had finally come.

So I took this picture:

Everything about that day reminded me of the best things about Oregon and my favorite season. I finally felt at home.

Then, literally three days later, this happened:

my drive to work

my view from my office

Autumn lasted three days! 

I have learned that winter here does not look like what I had imagined-- huge snowdrifts, snowplows, and winter sports. Instead, it is intensely cold. It snows a little bit, then melts a little bit, then freezes, so while there isn't a lot of snow, there is a lot of ice, and the snow never goes away. 

Also, they don't salt their roads or their walkways. We got a university-wide e-mail about the proper way to walk on ice, including not wearing high heels, walking with a wide gait, shuffling, and curling your toes under. We talked in staff meeting about the proper way to fill out a workplace accident complaint because they don't shovel the sidewalks! 

North Dakota, I don't understand you.

The Other Interns

As part of my internship training I had to go to Minneapolis with the other interns and some counseling center staff members in November. We spent a weekend learning EMDR, which is an intervention I never thought I would use, but have to (get to?) now.

The bonus was that I got to spend a lot of time with the other interns. There are three of us:

We spent our free time (away from the training) going to the Mall of America (four times), where I bought this sweater:

And these pants:

But not this vest:

We also bonded by watching American Horror Story: Asylum, knitting, watching YouTube videos, and talking a lot. 

Napo, one of the psychology residents, hung out with us because we made him:

He also went to the Mall of America with us a bunch of times, but he didn't buy much. He just wanted to take pictures.

at the Peeps store. it exists. not joking at all.

When the weekend started out we were all full of energy, probably fueled by the huge doughnuts we ate at a truck stop in Anandale, MN:

That energy dissipated, however, and on the ride home we were very tired, very silent, and apparently incubating flu germs because we all ended up very sick. I had to (got to?) miss two days of work because I couldn't even get out of bed.

We will be doing this again in April, which will be an interesting experience because we know each other a lot better after that weekend. To say we got off on the wrong foot would be putting it mildly, but we're enjoying each other now. Internship is a very unique experience.

Still Alive, Though Freezing

No, we were not killed by North Dakota (though it seems sometimes like we might freeze to death). Blogger decided that I didn't need to post pictures anymore, so it limited that function for me then returned it for some reason. Only once I tried to fix the problem did it turn out to not be a problem at all.

There are many updates to be given and many adventures that we've had. But it's been blizzarding in the Forks and we're holed up in our apartment making our way through the AFI top 100 movies list.

But if we were outside, it would look something like this: