Alanna's Summer Chronicles: Volume 1

Summer Chronicles a la Alanna.

I thought about calling it "The Intern Diary" but I feel that my summer will consist of more than just that.

I transported myself out here to good ol' Omaha, Nebraska (thanks Mom and Dad).

I am interning at Hayneedle, Inc. as the Merchandising Intern.

Alright, now that we have the boring stuff out of the way, in the past 4 days I've been here, I feel I've learned a lot. Such as:

1. You could get places a lot faster if you went the right way. 

Most of my time is driving around, realizing I went the wrong way, and desperately struggling to get back on track. While sometimes I turn to my friend, Stacy (AKA: GPS, AKA: Godsend; although, Stacy has been being replaced by Margaret sometimes. A. I don't like it. B. Margaret sucks, and says things like "Go south." That means nothing to me, Margaret), I have started to become increasingly stubborn and yelling that, "I can figure it out myself!" My work commute home could be about 15 minutes shorter if I just turned the right way. This also leads me to...

(Instagram-Norvina)

2. I'm not very observant

A main solution that would help in the lesson above is if I could become familiar with the buildings and businesses around me. I have driven the same routes everyday for 4 days, and every day, it's like I've never been on it before. I stared at the turn I needed for a full stop light rotation, and only at the last second realized I needed to turn. I proceeded to turn left across four lanes of traffic in the far right lane.

(Instagram)

3. People in Nebraska honk their horns a lot.

If one more God damned person honks their horn at me, I'm gonna freak out. Every day I get honked at at least once. But it's never when I'm doing anything illegal like mentioned above. It's when the stop light turned green a millisecond before. Maybe their teaching something different over in Nebraska's drivers' education programs, but I don't appreciate it.

4. The "bad parker disease" is everywhere.

Now, I might not be able to drive that well, but I can do the most basic thing and pull into a spot without being too close to the line on either side. We're not talking parallel or any other type of difficult parking (?), just the basics. And no. one. can. do. it. (Including my mom but I forgive her.)

(Google) While not precise, much like this.

5. If you are in the market for a children's bed, there are at least 1200 options to choose from.

I'm sure you would have never guessed this because neither would I. Until I started looking at the category placement of them. On a 5000+ row spreadsheet. I am on row 1600 some after 8 hours of work.

(Pinterest)

6. You can absolutely get sick of eating fast food.

The past 5 days, at least one (if not all) of my meals have been fast food. While I have become a burger and fry conisseur, I hope to never eat one again (JK, I'll probs eat one like tomorrow). 

7. Five Guys Burgers and Fries is overrated.

I had to get my headphones over my lunch hour, so I thought I'd stop and grab Five Guys. Seeing as it's the biggest deal it is coming to Iowa, I figured this place had to be a big deal. No. I'm over it. 

A. It was the slowest freaking "fast food" I've ever gotten. I was number 57 (arrived at 12:15, assuming it started counting at 11 when it opened; that's less than one customer per minute), and it was a good five minutes between 56 and me. 

B. I don't approve of this weird "just shovel the fries into the bag and not into a sleeve" game.

C. This weird ass man would not stop staring at me. Like not out of the corner of his eye either. Turning his whole body around and staring at me for the whole 15 minutes I was waiting for my mediocre food. Boys, this is not flattering. This is weird and rude and lots of other not positive adjectives. Look away, freak.

D. Some lady flagged me down in the parking lot and asked me if I was at all familiar with Lincoln. Well, last time I checked we were in Omaha, but I drive the wrong way so freaking often, maybe we are in Lincoln.

Creep

8. Piles of emails will plague me for the rest of my life.

As I am writing this here blog post, my phone shows that I have 21,106 emails (that was after I refreshed it from yesterday at 21,066). I understand that I have done this to myself, and that it is very unlikely I will ever crawl out of this hole I have dug. But the very first time I logged into my work email on my very first day, I had 49 unread emails. And this my friends, I simply cannot take the blame for.

The proof's in the pudding, people. 

9. Blow up mattresses are not that uncomfortable.

While, yes, I would rather be writing this atop a plush California King, this blow up camping queen has been doing me well. Most nights I am so utterly exhausted that I couldn't care less if I was sleeping on the floor. I woke up at midnight last night curled at the foot of my bed; I'm not picky.

10. I have become one of those psycho Iowa State people.

Because I am out of campus, I find myself clinging to anything and talking about everything Iowa State. I have attempted to befriend all the Iowa State employees at Hayneedle. I find myself yammering on about Iowa State all the time ("Iowa State's great." "Oh yeah, we have this street called Welch." "I'm happy to be here but excited to get back to Ames." "I love Iowa State. Do you love Iowa State? You don't? You should because I love Iowa State and if you don't, you are wrong and need to reevaluate everything about your stinkin' life.") I also found myself scowling at some man in an Iowa hat today in the office. 

(Pinterest)

Thanks for reading!
I hope to blog at least once a week to let everyone who cares or doesn't know what's going on in my life. I thought about vlogging or starting a Youtube channel, but I don't know if even I care enough about me for that. We'll see where this summer takes me. 


Live, Love, Lan