weekend wisconsin adventure

I'm not sure if the words "wisconsin" and "adventure" have ever been used in the same sentence before, so mark this moment-- you may have just witnessed history. Although the real history was probably made when I really did have an adventure in Wisconsin, which was last weekend.

The adventure actually started in the Salt Lake City airport, where I ran into my friend slash old roommate who works at the company at where I was on my way to interview. We ended up sitting next to each other all the way to Wisconsin, and she briefed me on the day-long interview process I had coming up. Since I got in after 6, I'd missed the group dinner with other candidates and a current employee (which sounds like a perfectly comfortable situation), but we went out to our own group dinner at the Old Fashioned, where I learned two things: 1) there are more beers than I could have counted in first grade and 2) cheeseburgers topped with a fried egg are simultaneously fantastic and horrible, like the relationship between the jar of nutella I ate today and the diabetes it's going to give me.

After stuffing myself silly, and eating more than every cute Wisconsin boy in the restaurant (although they were drinking more than eating, in my defense), I went back to my hotel. Which was, you know, right across the street from the capitol building. And then I had to use my room key in the elevator to get to my floor (because it was so elite), but the key only worked after you stuck it in exactly 23 times. When I finally made it to my floor (the top one), an old Russian gentlemen asked me if I was sure I was on the right one. "Um, yes. You don't think my wrinkled plane clothes are suited for this floor of governor's suites? Oh, you're right. But yes, this is my floor."

After setting out my outfit for the next morning, reviewing my application (and finding a typo but not being able to do anything about it), and prancing around my giant room in the hotel robe, I decided I should head to bed. In my personal king size bed. I stretched out, yawned, and...didn't fall asleep. For hours. Not because I was nervous for the interview, but because I was ashamed of myself for not being able to take full advantage of that enormous bed. All I could think about was how I wished I could be a cat, for the sole reason of having this ability:

but I couldn't do it. I sleep curled up in a ball, and that's how it is. I finally had to accept my failure and resort to my safe fetus sleeping position, in which I took up about an eighth of the bed, and slept perfectly for the remaining three hours of the night.

The next morning, I went downstairs and caught a taxi to the offices. I walked in with my suitcase and joined the herd of anxious young applicants, who were trying to crowd 20 people onto a bench meant for 10. The rest of the day was a meticulously choreographed dance in which we were all trying to impress everyone we came in contact with, because who knows who has the final say in what happens to your application.

2 interviews, 5 logic tests, 3 writing assessments and 7 hours later, I was done.

but the day was far from over.

to be continued...