It looks like I'm going to be leaving Minneapolis in about six months since I got accepted to UPitt and Drexel, two of the grad schools I applied for.  Both are out of state and while I love Minnesota and everything I have here, I've known for a while that I want to make a change.  The change isn't necessarily going to be Permanent and Forever, but I want to try living someplace new and what better time and way to do that than tie it all up with going back to school? It seems awfully drastic when put that way and not a little bit insane: not only making a big change and starting graduate school but also moving to a new city and state to do so...  what can I say?  I live for adventure!  I don't, actually, but I am really excited and completely scared, all at the same time.  I don't even know where I'm going yet.

All that aside, I've decided that I want to fill the next six months with as much Minnesota fun as I can stand.  Seriously.  I want to be so full of fun that I come perilously close to bursting.  I want to spend time with friends, like, all of them, and visit all the Twin Cities things I keep saying that I'll see someday.  I want to do all the things I already love, like walking around Calhoun and Uptown or being with friends anywhere and laughing a lot.  But I also want to do the things I always think I should do more of or really, all the things I think I should do at all, like going to the Swedish Institute or the Witches' Hat or going canoeing on the lakes or riding my damn bike.

It seems so silly to say it like that because I'm not going away and never coming back and Minnesota will certainly not be going anywhere anytime soon.  And ultimately I'd like to wind up back here, if not immediately following a grad program, sometime not too long after.  But what if all my friends leave during the time I'm gone?  What if grad school ages me ten years and I move back and am incapable of having fun?  What if Minnesota falls into a sink hole?  I must take advantage of all the amazing stuff on offer here in the event one of these things happen.

So, what did I do, to make sure that if one of these things happen, I will have the fullest and most complete Minnesota experience before I leave?  What do I ever do?  I made a list, of course - a list of things I'd like to do (some for the first time, some not) before moving:

Swedish Institute, Hennepin County History Museum, brunch at Forepaugh's, Adult Spelling Bee at 331 Club, canoeing the Lakes, bowling at Bryant Lake Bowl, eat outside, the Grand Cafe, Minnehaha Falls, Witches' Hat, camping, Unique Thrift (seriously, why haven't I been there?), J.J. Hill House, movies in Loring Park, Mill City Museum, ice skating at the Depot, breakfast at Victor's, sledding! (if it snows again, which it will), Art in Bloom, spend more time in St. Paul, spend time with friends, friends, and more friends.  

This list is not complete or comprehensive.  I will most certainly be adding things as they come to me or are suggested to me.  This is my statement of intent, however.  I will see people and do things and laugh and when I leave at the end of the summer, I'll be glowing with so many vibrant memories of Minnesota that the new people I meet will wonder why they don't live here.

As for the Classics Challenge, I started A Tale of Two Cities, got about 30 pages in, and got distracted by Norwegian Wood by Murakami and then Mad Men season three.  I'm still trying.