Memory Lane: October 18, 2005. Life as a broke ass student

12 years ago i was told, "cash rules everything around me, c.r.e.a.m get the money, dollar dollar bill ya'll" and although that may be true for the wu-tang clan, that's definately not how things go for a canadian studying in law school in the united states, paying in us dollars

i do admit, during my first couple of weeks i was mentally converting all my purchases to canadian dollars. the canadian dollar exchange rate to the us dollar is around .84 so right off i was out 16 cents for every dollar i spent. but i've quickly gotten over that, however i have been led to believe that the exchange rate applies to my citizenship as well, so currently, i would qualify as 84% american. so that officially explains why i have forfeited the use of the metric system, even though it is conceptual superior. on the plus side, i can say "it's all about the benjamins" and actually mean it (i don't even know who canada has on the $100 bill, but i'm sure it does not sound as cool) however, if the rate fluctuates any more, i might even have to decide if i'm a republican or a democrat. but, by this logic, i would be 700% south african, which means i would probably have been hijacked, and shot atleast 6 times already.

anyways back to my point. so i'm officially a student again, and that means no income (i went from brokers to broke). but that is not to say that my credit is so pathetic that i couldn't afford a debit. rather with these thoughts, i went to the mall of america this past weekend (with a crew of minority students i may add...its like playing where's waldo, only the 4 of us are pop up characters amongst the flat pages) get it?

anyhow, my first question, who was it that decided to build this big ass mall here of all places. i really doubt this is the fashion or shopping capital of the country. its not like i hear ralph lauren or donna karen saying "hey minneapolis that's the place to show off my winter collection" so i don't really get it. i'm sure there were several deserving cities that would have appreciated this mall, especially madison-wisconsin (then maybe they wouldn't outnumber the number of locals)

when i was deciding if i should attend the university of minnesota, a friend of mine said, well they do have the mall of america, the biggest mall in all of the us. well that's great i thought, that would be the best place on earth....if i was 13. i don't know if you and your friends did this where you are from, but when we were around that age, we would hang out at the mall for hours. and inbetween playing games of street figher 2 and nba jam in the arcade, we would crush over the girls in the food court. this was goodtimes. now i'm a little older (only in age, not in maturity as you can see) and i really don't have the urge to hop on the rollarcoaster after strolling out of macys.

speaking of the amusement park inside (which is an oxymoron on its own, since i don't find it very amusing). if i want to go to an amusement park, i will go to disney world, but i go to a mall to go shopping. so here is where the problems begin. the whole amusement park is part of a silly gimmick that is the mall of america. sure there are some good stores there, but honestly, a cheesefactory, an oxgen bar??? now really. who goes to the mall and thinks, "i really need to go by the oxygen bar and get some air" the whole world is an oxygen bar, paying for it is ridiculous, going to a mall to get oxygen is even down right ludacris. the amount of useless stores in the mall is astounding, what were the people that open these stores even thinking. i think it went like this "lets open a store that only sells cheese related merchandise, there are lots of people from wisconsin here, so we can even sell some greenbay packers stuff" guess what? bad idea. if i was in charge of financing, and i got this idea thrown on my desk, i would write in big red crayon no less, "fuck off" fact is, i would probably have to tell about 45% of the stores in the mall to fuck off. that would include the piano store (that is always empty), the store with the airplane simulator (what can i even buy there) and the seventh and eight store that sells only sells minnesota related merchandise (i'm sure to the first guy, this was a good idea). but this is not to say, that the mall is not any good, there are actually some great stores, its just an effort to get from one to the next. but anyways, i guess when you are a law student and your big event for the weekend was going the mall, i shouldn't be complaining at all. (i could have been at the golphers game and watch them choke away the game to border rivals wisconsin in the dying seconds, for something known as paul bunions ax (what's next, playing for johnny's appleseeds?) respect if you remember what that was about.

but i will close all these thoughts with alittle story about being crafty with your dollars. i'm sure you know people like this.

there was this guy, the type of guy that would never have bills in his wallet. he was the type that would have about $10 in quarters. and you're probably thinking, this guy needs to stay home, you just don't go out with $10 in quarters. but let me tell you about this guy. this guy was determined to get around, on the bus no less. but he would never even cash in those quarters to pay to get on. rather, he would get on the bus, pretend he was looking for his change, wait for the bus driver to drive off, acting like he was about to pay, for like 5 stops. then when it became obvious, he would get off the bus (but try and find a transfer on the way out). and he would get on the next bus on the same route, do the same thing for about 5 stops. then keeping doing it, till he got whereever he was intending to go.

money ain't a thing

respect