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 Thursday,
February 15
posted by Nguyen
Last weekend my host family took me “up north”
to a town called Nisswa. It was such a terrific coincidence
that the coldest days of this winter were last weekend. The
temperature was fluctuating from 00 to 300 Fahrenheit below,
not to mention 400 below wind chill. It’s about 3 hours
drive and was just a fantastic trip.
Living on campus full-time sometimes makes me lazy to get
up and make an effort to go somewhere else, since everything
I need is right here. Perhaps I should explore how to use
the Metro Bus that Laurel mentioned in her post. Oh yeah,
back to the story, we departed from Macalester at 4:30 pm
right after my last class on the day. We stopped at Culver’s
to grab some burgers and sundaes, and then headed straight
“to the woods.” The family we spent the night
with is my host dad’s dad (complicated relationship,
I know). He fixes boats for a living, and built the house
himself. He is a little eccentric, and so he does not want
anybody to live close to him. His house is literally in the
middle of a forest, I’m absolutely certain that within
1 mile diameter there are nothing but trees.
Staying away from a college dorm full of lively students and
moving into a beautiful yet isolated house in the middle of
nowhere was an exciting experience. His wife writes books
and paints in a separate ‘no-one-else-is-allowed’
room in the far corner inside the house (with respect to the
fact that there are only two of them living together in such
a place). I love their little library; it felt as if I could
just sit on the couch and enjoying reading books for years.
He told me that there are black bears and wolves around sometimes,
so do watch out!
That night I realized something that I thought to myself truly
amazing. Looking out the window the snow reflected the brightness
upon everything…it was never really dark. I’ve
never seen that on campus, because the city lights are on
all night. I looked out the window, feeling chilly and tiny
within the bigness of Mother Nature.
At 7:30 the next morning, he woke me up to go outside and
feed the deer. It was so cold—five seconds outside and
I could not feel my face. The deer were scared of me, so I
went inside (phew!) and let him fed them. On that same day,
my host family drove me to the big lakes nearby and introduced
me the Ice Fishing culture. People stayed inside a truck that
had a hole in the middle. They dig through that hole down
into the ice until they reach the water and then drop the
bait. It was too cold, so we did not stay there for long.
Then we went skiing, but the place is closed “due to
extreme climate conditions”. Nisswa is a very little
town where everyone seems to know one another. I love that.
I hope I can return to Nisswa this summer and go fishing.
I particularly like the quote that his wife gave me: “One
of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly
making exciting discoveries.” It was such a relaxing
weekend away from school.
This week I spent a lot of time looking for summer internships.
I sent my resume to quite a number of companies, and I will
have my first interview today. Wow, I won’t be disappointed
if I get turned down by all of them, since I simply want to
give it a try. Some students work for non-profit companies
and still get paid by a scholarship foundation, isn’t
that great? Oh well, I still want to go home to Vietnam this
summer though. Anyway, that’s it for now and we will
post another blog next week.
P.S.: By the way, the Lunar New Year
is just a few days ahead. Happy New Year everyone!!! Happy
Valentine too!!!
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