khigh

As soon as I hit submit, I started to doubt myself as a writer and historian. I think it's pretty normal.

It's even worse when you have been talking to a POI for months, even having coffee with them and being invited/attending symposium and consortium meetings with them...and you apply...and they don't tell you they are planning on retiring in the next few years and don't know if they will be taking anyone. 

As soon as I hit submit, I started to doubt myself as a writer and historian. I think it's pretty normal.

They may be getting a feel for the field or wait for some acceptances to decline before accepting or rejecting more people. 

Southern Spice and Minnesota Nice: A Southern Girl in the North Country
"If y'all ever ask me if you should move here, I say don't.  It's not that I don't love the North, I really do. It's just that I moved up here to get away from y'all. For those that just need to come to the land of ice and snow, have I got a survival guide for you. So, put down your Coke (no really, it's pop here) and learn y'allselves something."
You know, this could really work. I'm already cracking myself up and I love the combination of titles that y'all suggested. 
 

Have your cake and eat it too! Southern Spice and Minnesota Nice: A Southern Girl in the North Country.

U of M as in UMN (Minnesota) or Michigan? If it's the first, we've been talking about it in the shellacked thread and if you have any questions about Minneapolis, feel free to ask. Don't ask about living in St Paul. We don't cross back and forth over the River too much here. 

Nothing has really updated with UMN since the first round of applicants with university wide funding came out.  I'm taking that as a decent sign, hoping and waiting.

U of M as in UMN (Minnesota) or Michigan? If it's the first, we've been talking about it in the shellacked thread and if you have any questions about Minneapolis, feel free to ask. Don't ask about living in St Paul. We don't cross back and forth over the River too much here. 

Then you would be happy to know I made tatertot hotdish for dinner tonight and bars for dessert. 

I will probably put the first post up this evening. Honestly, winter isn’t that bad. Even -20 is easy to deal with because there is almost no humidity. You do need to start your car a few times a day to let it warm up. Snow is great. We got 17” in uptown on Monday and only had one bad day of driving. They had the highways cleared by Tuesday morning and the neighborhoods by Wednesday morning. 
The U has a tunnel system, so you never have to go outside on campus if you don’t want to. 
Minneapolis is the most educated city in the USA. We have more Fortune 500 companies per capita than anywhere else in the US. We are now the most bikeable city, beating Portland and Seattle. We have the most green space out of all US cities. There are ski resorts within the city (well, the burbs) and you can cross country ski on any of the bike trails in the winter. Ice skating is free, including skates, on city lakes. 
Minne is diverse. We pride ourselves on the way we take care of refugees, so there are large Syrian, Somalian, and Hmong populations. That means great food. 
Traffic is not bad at all for a major city. I work 20 miles away on the other side of the city and even during rush hour, it’s only a 45 minute drive. You do have to get used to the stoplights on the on-ramps. That’s so people are nice and alternate getting on the interstate. 
Coffee is Caribou or Tim Hortons (or Dunn’s). We don’t do a lot of Starbucks here. Amazon has a big presence in the city, so we all use Amazon Restaurants. You can have any food delivered to your home from places within 10 miles. In my area, that’s anything from Mediterranean to Chinese to Indian to bar food. 
I live in the Carag neighborhood. It’s old Victorian apartments. I am three blocks one way from Lake Calhoun and three blocks another way to Lake Street, which is a trendy place full of bars, restaurants, shopping, and local amenities. Target is king here (headquartered in Minneapolis) and Walmart is only in the burbs. 
I honestly moved here for two reasons. The boyfriend is from Bloomington (Mall of America). And, I was tired of summer. Summer here is great. It’s never too hot. You may have a few 90 degree days, but most of the time, it’s in the 70s and 80s. 
Sorry that was so long, but I love this place. There is a reason that it is said that it is impossible to get people to move to Minneapolis, but once they get here, it’s impossible to get them to leave. 

i thought y’all would enjoy this as much as I do. 

“No, Dutch isn’t misspelled German”
”French is just lazy Italian” -said to the French prof as I decided to go a different (Germanic) route. She made me bitter  
”You’re from Quebec. That’s not French!”
”Frisian and Afrikaans are different than Dutch. Here, let me give you a couple hundred year lesson on colonialism!”

i thought y’all would enjoy this as much as I do. 

I will probably put the first post up this evening. Honestly, winter isn’t that bad. Even -20 is easy to deal with because there is almost no humidity. You do need to start your car a few times a day to let it warm up. Snow is great. We got 17” in uptown on Monday and only had one bad day of driving. They had the highways cleared by Tuesday morning and the neighborhoods by Wednesday morning. 
The U has a tunnel system, so you never have to go outside on campus if you don’t want to. 
Minneapolis is the most educated city in the USA. We have more Fortune 500 companies per capita than anywhere else in the US. We are now the most bikeable city, beating Portland and Seattle. We have the most green space out of all US cities. There are ski resorts within the city (well, the burbs) and you can cross country ski on any of the bike trails in the winter. Ice skating is free, including skates, on city lakes. 
Minne is diverse. We pride ourselves on the way we take care of refugees, so there are large Syrian, Somalian, and Hmong populations. That means great food. 
Traffic is not bad at all for a major city. I work 20 miles away on the other side of the city and even during rush hour, it’s only a 45 minute drive. You do have to get used to the stoplights on the on-ramps. That’s so people are nice and alternate getting on the interstate. 
Coffee is Caribou or Tim Hortons (or Dunn’s). We don’t do a lot of Starbucks here. Amazon has a big presence in the city, so we all use Amazon Restaurants. You can have any food delivered to your home from places within 10 miles. In my area, that’s anything from Mediterranean to Chinese to Indian to bar food. 
I live in the Carag neighborhood. It’s old Victorian apartments. I am three blocks one way from Lake Calhoun and three blocks another way to Lake Street, which is a trendy place full of bars, restaurants, shopping, and local amenities. Target is king here (headquartered in Minneapolis) and Walmart is only in the burbs. 
I honestly moved here for two reasons. The boyfriend is from Bloomington (Mall of America). And, I was tired of summer. Summer here is great. It’s never too hot. You may have a few 90 degree days, but most of the time, it’s in the 70s and 80s. 
Sorry that was so long, but I love this place. There is a reason that it is said that it is impossible to get people to move to Minneapolis, but once they get here, it’s impossible to get them to leave. 

I will probably put the first post up this evening. Honestly, winter isn’t that bad. Even -20 is easy to deal with because there is almost no humidity. You do need to start your car a few times a day to let it warm up. Snow is great. We got 17” in uptown on Monday and only had one bad day of driving. They had the highways cleared by Tuesday morning and the neighborhoods by Wednesday morning. 
The U has a tunnel system, so you never have to go outside on campus if you don’t want to. 
Minneapolis is the most educated city in the USA. We have more Fortune 500 companies per capita than anywhere else in the US. We are now the most bikeable city, beating Portland and Seattle. We have the most green space out of all US cities. There are ski resorts within the city (well, the burbs) and you can cross country ski on any of the bike trails in the winter. Ice skating is free, including skates, on city lakes. 
Minne is diverse. We pride ourselves on the way we take care of refugees, so there are large Syrian, Somalian, and Hmong populations. That means great food. 
Traffic is not bad at all for a major city. I work 20 miles away on the other side of the city and even during rush hour, it’s only a 45 minute drive. You do have to get used to the stoplights on the on-ramps. That’s so people are nice and alternate getting on the interstate. 
Coffee is Caribou or Tim Hortons (or Dunn’s). We don’t do a lot of Starbucks here. Amazon has a big presence in the city, so we all use Amazon Restaurants. You can have any food delivered to your home from places within 10 miles. In my area, that’s anything from Mediterranean to Chinese to Indian to bar food. 
I live in the Carag neighborhood. It’s old Victorian apartments. I am three blocks one way from Lake Calhoun and three blocks another way to Lake Street, which is a trendy place full of bars, restaurants, shopping, and local amenities. Target is king here (headquartered in Minneapolis) and Walmart is only in the burbs. 
I honestly moved here for two reasons. The boyfriend is from Bloomington (Mall of America). And, I was tired of summer. Summer here is great. It’s never too hot. You may have a few 90 degree days, but most of the time, it’s in the 70s and 80s. 
Sorry that was so long, but I love this place. There is a reason that it is said that it is impossible to get people to move to Minneapolis, but once they get here, it’s impossible to get them to leave. 

If any of the UMN admits end up coming to the Cities, let me know, and I can give you some pointers about the city. First thing, give up Starbucks. Sure, we have them up here, but it's all about Caribou and Tim Hortons. Oh, and we may have all of the professional sports (including women's tackle football), but high school hockey is king. Learn to like at least one sport because that is what people will talk about and learn to love talking about the weather- it's how we end conversations.

If any of the UMN admits end up coming to the Cities, let me know, and I can give you some pointers about the city. First thing, give up Starbucks. Sure, we have them up here, but it's all about Caribou and Tim Hortons. Oh, and we may have all of the professional sports (including women's tackle football), but high school hockey is king. Learn to like at least one sport because that is what people will talk about and learn to love talking about the weather- it's how we end conversations.

I've spent time in London.  It's not my cup of tea, if you will. There are a few cities I don't think I could ever live in if I moved to Europe and Paris and London are at the top of that list. A lot of it may have been, at least with London, that I had spent a few weeks in Berlin and after that, the food in London was horrible.  I also didn't care for the people I encountered or hearing English everywhere. Paris was a different issue- the city smells horrible, like raw sewage and rotting meat.  
After this cycle, if I don't get in, I have a few choices. Most Dutch schools don't have deadlines until June, Rome is July, and the UMN Law School deadline is also July. 

I'm going to give it until I get a rejection, but I'm getting on the older side if I want a career, dontcha know? I took the LSATs last year and have a fee waiver for UMN-Law, so I might start working on that application next week. I wouldn't be over-the-moon excited about being a lawyer, but I wouldn't be unhappy working in sports law, either. My extracurriculars/resume/CV lean more towards the law side of things. President of Student Government, Higher Education Advocate at the state legislature, Oklahoma Intercollegiate Legislature, Model UN (absolutely the best experience of my career so far), 15 or so university wide committees, campaign work from 2004-2016, Ok Policy Institute, women's leadership organizations multiple languages, President of Model UN, Phi Alpha Theta, History Club, etc.
It does make me feel better that the law school actually wants me and is trying to recruit me or I wouldn't even consider it. One of the hardest things for me is how much I want to, NEED to, stay in Minneapolis. It's home. It's where I want to raise children and build a life. It's far enough away that my parents don't just stop in to visit. And, the boyfriend found a very good job for the next academic year.  If I was not geographically bound, I would have applied more places. The only way I would ever want to leave Minneapolis is either for an academic career or to work for the Chicago Cubs front office. 
I did find out today that I am a finalist for a paid internship in the front office for the Minnesota Twins. They LOVED my paper on the influence of the American West on baseball rules that also included a critique of Spaulding. Most of their people are in analytics, but the person that called me said they are looking for diversity in the office (female historian helps that). I'm also addicted to sabermetrics. They asked if I was okay with the requirement to attend ALL home games. I laughed at the recruiter. I spend every day I have off during the season at the ballpark. We just won't mention that I am a Cubs fan first and a Twins fan second. It wouldn't cause conflict unless both were in the World Series because Twins is AL and Cubs is NL. 
I may see how the internship goes if I get it. If I like it and don't get into the U this cycle, I will go to law school. If I don't like it and don't get in, I will wait and reapply next cycle.

Emma Goldman is one of my favorite people in labor history along with Bakunin and Kropotkin. My paper for Women in Politics was about Goldman and she is fascinating. She escaped deportation a few times and was implicated in the assassination of McKinley, but was never brought to trial because the belief at the time was that a woman was not capable of inciting a man to kill a sitting president.

I've started working on a blog that deals with this. I think I'm going to call it "Southern Girl in the North Country" as a nod to Dylan. 

I'm going to give it until I get a rejection, but I'm getting on the older side if I want a career, dontcha know? I took the LSATs last year and have a fee waiver for UMN-Law, so I might start working on that application next week. I wouldn't be over-the-moon excited about being a lawyer, but I wouldn't be unhappy working in sports law, either. My extracurriculars/resume/CV lean more towards the law side of things. President of Student Government, Higher Education Advocate at the state legislature, Oklahoma Intercollegiate Legislature, Model UN (absolutely the best experience of my career so far), 15 or so university wide committees, campaign work from 2004-2016, Ok Policy Institute, women's leadership organizations multiple languages, President of Model UN, Phi Alpha Theta, History Club, etc.
It does make me feel better that the law school actually wants me and is trying to recruit me or I wouldn't even consider it. One of the hardest things for me is how much I want to, NEED to, stay in Minneapolis. It's home. It's where I want to raise children and build a life. It's far enough away that my parents don't just stop in to visit. And, the boyfriend found a very good job for the next academic year.  If I was not geographically bound, I would have applied more places. The only way I would ever want to leave Minneapolis is either for an academic career or to work for the Chicago Cubs front office. 
I did find out today that I am a finalist for a paid internship in the front office for the Minnesota Twins. They LOVED my paper on the influence of the American West on baseball rules that also included a critique of Spaulding. Most of their people are in analytics, but the person that called me said they are looking for diversity in the office (female historian helps that). I'm also addicted to sabermetrics. They asked if I was okay with the requirement to attend ALL home games. I laughed at the recruiter. I spend every day I have off during the season at the ballpark. We just won't mention that I am a Cubs fan first and a Twins fan second. It wouldn't cause conflict unless both were in the World Series because Twins is AL and Cubs is NL. 
I may see how the internship goes if I get it. If I like it and don't get into the U this cycle, I will go to law school. If I don't like it and don't get in, I will wait and reapply next cycle.

That's good to know.  I tried to avoid taking any American history classes (took only the required amount) and my senior capstone class was on the American West. Turner was required reading. I hated Turner, but I came through my program hating American history.  We were a very split bunch between Europeanists and Americanists. The Europeanists had t-shirts that said "Turner couldn't even find the borderland." Americanists had shirts that said "History didn't start until 1776." 

We joke that if I don't get into grad school that at least we will be a family with only one broke out-of-work professor instead of two. I would have driven myself off the deep end a long time ago without him.