What a week

I did spend last weekend shopping - I spent all day Saturday at the Mall of America looking for red and khaki. I had a lot of energy b/c I pigged out at Johnny Rockets first, but somehow the MOA is so big that it can still drain you within a few hours. Old Navy was having its Columbus Day 1492 sale so I got a red henley and a red basic long sleeve top for $14.92 (no tax on clothes here). Also, everything at NY & Co was on sale so I managed to get a nice long pair of khakis for $18.50. Not too bad. Of course, I had to take advantage of MOA being the home of the Forever 21 accessories store (I think its called ForLove 21). That is probably hands down my favorite cheap accessories store now. Everytime I go in there I find things that I like. I walked out with a turquoise wallet (one of those flat ones that are springing up everywhere), two pair of earrings, and a decorated notepad. They also had camis on sale for $2.50 but there was a mob attacking those and I didn't have the patience to battle it out for that black size small so I just let it be. Saturday night, I had plans with my "Wharton" crew (well, technically it's two of my Wharton classmates, the boyfriend of one of them, and a girl who was introduced to us through my Wharton roommate b/c they went to Stanford undergrad together). We had a pre-party at one of their apartments then headed out to the W, which just opened here a couple of months ago. The W has two bars - Prohibition on the 27th floor, and another bar in the lobby which is bigger. We hit them both up, and were joined by a few more folks (friends of friends) so it turned out to be a group of about 9 of us. The W itself was very live and packed, which is the probably the only place in Minneapolis where you feel like you're not in Minneapolis. All in all, it was a fun night.
Starting out the week, I spent Monday and Tuesday working as a sales associate in the store in Chaska, Minnesota. Yeah, I know it sounds like a demotion, but not really. It was an eye opening experience. First of all, Chaska is kind of out in the boonies. In this area, I rarely drive more than 10 minutes to get somewhere, but the commute to Chaska was a good 35-40 minutes. It required me taking 5 different highways and thanks to Mapquest, one of the highways no longer existed (good thing I left early the first day b/c it took me a good 10 minute detour to learn this information). At the store, I got to do a lot of associate type tasks like putting inventory out on the sales floor, zoning and adjusting presentation for a few areas, setting planograms for Christmas merchandise, and checking in stocks. My favorite task though, was setting the floorplan for my area (girls apparel) which just set new merchandise this week. Since the actual floorpad and the adjacency (the little guidebook that's supposed to tell the associates how to set the floor) differed, it was really a creative process to figure out how to get everything out on the floor in a way that maintained the brand flows, and would maximize sales. Realizing how much of the process was open to interpretation was surprising to me. I worked with my coworker in Softlines (who also graduated from Wharton with me) and her area is intimates so we also set the floorplan for intimates which was a very similar process. I left on Tuesday with a newfound appreciation for the sales associates. Their ability to be on their feet from 8am until 5pm deserves a medal b/c after the first day my legs were dying. I came home and passed out on my living room floor (yeah, I still don't have a sofa yet) and just laid there unable to move for a while. The second day was not as bad, and after spending two days working the sales floor, we both went power shopping at the end of the day Tuesday and bought all the stuff that we had been walking around drooling over for the prior two days (btw, if you haven't been into the store lately you should - there's some cute women's clothing and shoes on the floor, and holiday is out now too).
The rest of the week was just as busy. I spent all day Thursday in two big milestone meetings. For lunch, our team went to this place called "my burger" which sells mini burgers. I was excited to go (I love my burgers - I've been feenin for a goodburger for the past few months) since we don't have those on the east coast as far as I know, but after I ate it I just thought it was ok. The meat didn't seem all that high quality. The proof though came a few hours later when it upset my stomach and had me feeling sick. It took two days to recover (so fyi, I don't recommend eating at "my burger"). Yesterday afternoon, I went competitive shopping with my team, which wasn't nearly as exciting as I thought it would be. It was pretty work intensive and since we needed to get through all the stores in a few hours, there wasn't much time to stop and smell the roses (ie. shop). I also rode with my mentor so I couldn't just stay afterward and do my own thing.
Thursday night, I ended up going to the Urban League Young Professionals meeting, although I hadn't intended to. Jjais (my friend from high school who is in law school here) sent me an email at work saying she was going after she got out of class and I responded saying I wasn't sure if I was going. Then she called me around 6 saying she was at the meeting (apparently she never got my email) so then I felt bad and decided to go meet her there. I'm actually really glad I went. There was a guest speaker (the head of the Minneapolis chapter of the League of Women Voters who also happens to be a black woman), and she talked about a lot of details regarding the upcoming election and some of the issues that will be on the ballot. It was very eye-opening (I had thought we were going to be spending the meeting talking about the candidates which is why I was reluctant to go - I am sick of talking about Obama/McCain/Biden/Palin). But instead it was very useful b/c we got to learn about some of the issues in order to make a more informed vote. She also clarified things for those of us who have newly relocated to Minneapolis (which was a good number of us) to make sure we don't have any problems voting on election day. Afterward, I was starving but Jjais had a lot of work to do so I was going to go home but Jjais was hungry too so we ended up going to this sushi place downtown. It was good, but not quite as good as Nami - the other Sushi restaurant I've been to here.
Today I'm not doing much but getting my apartment in order and I just found out there is a book fair a few blocks down the street at the Community College so I'm probably going to head over there for an hour or so. Tonight, I'm supposed to go to a wine and cheese event hosted by some General Mills folks, one of whom used to intern with me last summer so it should be fun. Oh, and tomorrow I'm finally going to try to check out this church here - they have a 7:45am service that I'm shooting for (yeah I know, real ambitious for me) but if not there's also a 10:45 service. Have a good weekend y'all!