I’ve returned home from Iowa City one night earlier than scheduled, due to an oncoming wretched cold/ my cousin’s graduation party tomorrow.  While I of course enjoyed myself, it was an interesting glimpse into some growing pains I’m sure to encounter over the next three months.  Wednesday was my first day of, “What a lovely American visit this has been, get me back to Germany now.” Once I start my internship (MONDAY!!) my mood is sure to improve because quite frankly, I’m bored outta my gourd.  NPH’s birthday party was a rousing success– I introduced a few of the well-dressed attendees to German beer, and the cake and cupcakes were merely a memory shortly after the last bars of “Happy Birthday” were flatly sung.

Yeah, it was Funfetti. Feel free to hire me for your next party

The two-hour drive between Iowa City and home is sure to be the bane of my summer 2010 existence.  Come to think of it, so will the drive to and from my place of employment– completely on the other side of Des Moines, a journey that will often be made with the other 9-5ers trucking into the city from the suburbs.  (Ok, I’m KINDA really looking forward to being one of these under-caffeinated, overly aggressive commuters, but I feel it will quickly get old.)  Maybe I’ll become an avid player of morning radio show contests.  I’m also entertaining romantic daydreams of wearing professional office attire, then fielding many text requests from various family and friends to meet them for post-work dinner or drinks.  This glamorous dream-life I’ve created for myself is helpful during instances like today’s commencement exercises at Iowa.  The campus was overrun with seniors in their caps and gowns, parents looking horribly out of place and furtively glancing about like, “I’m in Iowa City, I could get puked on at any moment.”  Most of my friends have made several comments about how that’s going to be us in a year: Ohmygod we were just freshman yesterday/ I’m not ready/ let’s all drop out, grow beards, and start an alternative community in one of the lesser-populated Western states.  Surprisingly, I have not yet joined them in their panic, and am instead quite excited to become gainfully employed immediately post-college (because don’t you know, journalism majors are in such hot demand right now …) and start my shockingly cosmopolitan life in an equally cosmopolitan metropolis somewhere.  Oh, Sex and the City, you are so setting me up for quite the slap in the face later from the real world.