Networking.

If you know me, you know how much I enjoy networking and getting to know other people. This may or may not be why I am so interested in social media... to say I am connected is a bit of an understatement. Besides having this blog account, I also have Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Klout, Pinterest, YouTube, and Facebook. I interact with a number of people on each outlet, and find the social media concepts to be learning opportunities. Here, I'll share a few small world moments that these connections have brought on.

This summer, I thoroughly enjoyed utilizing Foursquare to check in at famous locations, museums, tourist points of interest and airports. Early on in my European adventure, I had the opportunity to attend the Churchill War Rooms / Imperial War Museum with my Aussie friend, Fred. Towards the end of our trip with our class, we were able to visit the Churchill War Rooms / Imperial War Museum again. This was one of my favorite class trips, I had already been there before and all of the information was so great. This has got to be one of the most well done museums I have ever gone through. For Foursquare purposes, and because I was able to visit the Museum twice in three months (unless you work there, who does) I checked in on both occasions. This granted me Mayorship of the museum. It was not until the middle of September that social media informed me, the torch had passed. A man from Mexico had checked in more often than I had, and held the mayorship for quite some time, following my reign.

When I first moved to Minneapolis, I picked up a number of Minnesota-friendly followers on Twitter. One such person, @buddhastew who is described as "your local neighborhood woman boner", complete with a trombone in her picture. Considering my hobby and past of playing trombone, I reciprocated the follow, and tweeted at her asking where she plays and where about she is actually located in the Twin Cities. Wouldn't you know, she was performing on a cruise ship in the Caribbean (at the time). She then inquired about my job, asked if I was indeed working for the Minnesota Orchestra? I responded telling her I was, and that if possible we should get together when she returns to play duets. Just when I thought that would be as far as the connection went, people at worked mentioned a girl who used to work in our department, a trombone player who was currently performing on a cruise ship. When in fact, they knew exactly who she was. Lauren and I have since met, and on a number of occasions talked about getting together, though no plans have been made. We are just too busy!

Besides making friends and connections through social media interactions, I have been invited on a more professional level, by a friend from high school, Kate, to assist her at University of Minnesota Wrestling matches. I know I have touched on this briefly in the past, but there was one extra exciting event towards the end of January that left Kate and I on television. The Big Ten Network to be precise. The University of Minnesota was wrestling against Iowa, if you're familiar with sports conferences or the Big 10, you know this was a huge event. The dual was held in a larger venue than normal, and we were surrounded by Big Ten Network broadcasting staff (if you know who you're looking for, you'll enjoy some of the video around the one minute mark). Before the event began, I sent a quick text to my family and a few friends who I thought might get the channel and/or be interested. My brother, Morgan, went so far as to watch the event on TV (from South Carolina) and interact with me on the Minnesota Live Blog. Talk about cool. I love technology and how it brings people together.

More recently, my friend Marsha came to visit and we met at a coffee shop in Uptown (quite possibly my favorite), Spyhouse. While we were there, we had some small, casual conversation with a guy (Michael) who said he was visiting home for a couple weeks from China. A few harmless conversations, interjections and eavesdroppings later, we realized that Michael and I had a few mutual acquaintances. Not to mention similar plans for dinner. Michael was going to meet a friend for dinner at Pat's Tap. Marsha and I were going to grab food there as well. And later in the evening, I was going to stop by to see a friend who was going to dj. Towards the end of the late afternoon, when he went to take the bus to the place we were all going, Marsha and I extended him the offer of a ride. We quickly became connected through Twitter and have since kept up with one another.

Did you feel that? The world just got a little smaller. We must give thanks to social media, what else would we do with our free time?!
Sarah Marsh

Learning Curve

This month has continued to teach me that patience is a virtue and cars are not indestructible. Why do I know this? Because, in the month of January, I have experienced numerous occasions where my car did silly things and required my patience. This month kicked off with a ton of fun, some of which you probably read in past posts. What wasn't included were some near-to-tragic events with my car. I have had the opportunity to be angry with my car, which made me have patience over having no control and needing to wait for repair.

Initially, I had a small fender bender to begin the month. I tapped another vehicle while I was in reverse. Next-to-no damage, but the fact that it happened was enough. Saturday morning before work in Saint Paul. I stopped at the house the car was parked infront of to inform whomever owned the vehicle and consequently was late to work.

The following Saturday morning before work in Saint Paul, my door was frozen shut. Once I was able to unfreeze the door and get in to start warming up the car, my driver's side door would not shut. I ended up holding the door as tightly as I could with both hands and locking the door to make sure it stayed shut. How else do you expect me to have driven to Saint Paul with one hand on the door, one hand on the steering wheel and a third, that I do not have, on the shifter? Yes, yes I know that is impossible. Reasons why I needed a quick solution.

If you can believe it, the next Saturday morning on my way to work in Saint Paul (are you noticing the trend here?), I stopped for some gas in what was turning into a bad wintry mix. While stopped I planned on cleaning my windows for a fresh clean start before the weather kicked into overdrive. When I lifted the wipers off the windshield, one of my wiper blades tumbled to the ground. Just so happening to be the wiper in front of the driver's point of view. Go. Figure. I picked up the blade and headed the rest of the way to work.

Luckily, there is no official damage to the other vehicle, or mine, from the small accident. My door has had no problems (cross your fingers, knock on wood!) since that day, and the lovely man at AutoZone was able to snap my wiper blade back on easy as pie. At this point I felt confident is saying, nothing else could possibly go wrong with my car this month; that would just be crazy!

Until the next Friday night. I was headed to my cousin's house to babysit and something, a little more than half way from where I live to where they are, started making some noise. I was unable to tell just what it was, but I thought it was bizarre that I could hear it over my music. I waited until I arrive at their house to see what was the matter. Low and behold, my rear right tire was flat. I figured there was not much I could do to change the situation, so I went on to the house. Finding out quickly that my cousin didn't actually need me to babysit anymore, I had the time to contact AAA and be rescued.

Although unadvised to drive around on your spare, I managed to be successful at navigating around potholes for less than a week before selling an arm and a leg for two new tires. Game on car. Let's see what you will do -or won't do- the rest of winter!

More on the way!
Sarah Marsh