The Origins

For the Record~

When faced with the daunting task of starting a blog, usually the first question the blogger (or bloggeuse, if you will) has an answer to, is what it's going to be about. However, it has taken me a while to figure out where to begin. And then...eureka! it came to me...I'll start at the beginning.

I was born a chubby baby girl in a northwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois, and I moved to Connecticut at the gawky, awkward (gawkward if you will) age of 12. Then I began studying at the illustriousish Syracuse University in good old upstate New York as an aspiring journalist. (We'll get to that later.) Additionally, I spend what many might deem an unhealthy amount of time in the Green Mountain State, due to my parents' decision to build a house on Lake Bomoseen in Vermont. At the moment, I'm abroad, studying in Fabulous and Foggy Londontown. My ultimate goal is to do my graduate work at Northwestern University, move to the Wrigleyville neighborhood of Chicago, become a star legal reporter for The Trib and live happily ever after with my adopted Guatemalan children. (Just in case you wanted to look me up in 15 to 20 years, now you'll know where I'll be and what I'll be doing.)

This talk of origins brings me to the utter confusion and sometimes madness, that I feel when someone asks me where I'm from. Ever since I went away to college 2...almost 3 (holy crap!) years ago, it seems like everyday someone is asking me where I'm from. Particularly since I've been living in Europe for over two months now. These Brits won't stand for an answer of "the states" to that age old question "where are you from?" Sometimes they're so inquisitive that I'm surprised they don't pull out a frickin globe so I can point it out to them.

I mean, what am I supposed to say to these people? Technically I'm from Illinois, but I've been living in Connecticut for 8 1/2 years and now I consider myself to be from there too. Everything is made even more complicated by the fact that I'm actually not going to be living in Connecticut when I go home anymore since the P's are moving up to Woodchucksville on the lake for good now that my pesky sister is college-bound and whatnot. And to top it all off, going to college in Syracuse means I've sort of actually been living there for the past several years. (If you consider dorms "living," that is.) I guess I could be really lame, yet also semi-clever and tell people I'm from "Illinnectimontacuse" like that cell phone commercial that I saw roughly 9,000 times during football season last year. (For the record: I'm going to wait until Pats' training camp starts up in July to blog about them because I am in fact still recovering from the Super Bowl. Unless Tom and Gisele get engaged or pregnant or something, then I'll have to address it.)

The point is: I don't really know if anyone can really get me unless they know that I'm from Illinnectimontacuse, or at least Illinnecticut because both of those places matter so much to me. Before I go totally sentimental on this post, I'm going to sign off. But next time some bloody Brit asks me where I'm from, I'm not going to choose one spot, I'm going to lay it all out there.

Thanks for listening.

~Jamie