Ashish Vaidya, interim president, addresses employees during Convocation Aug. 17 in Ritsche Auditorium.
Among Ashish Vaidya’s Aug. 17 Convocation remarks was a humorous nod to his transition from sunny southern California to Central Minnesota.
In the spirit of David Letterman’s top 10: From Jack and Jim’s Event Center in Duelm, here are the top 10 things our former provost and interim president has learned since arriving in 2015.
10. The trick to enduring winter in Minnesota – three layers underneath a 40-pound parka and plenty of single-malt scotch.
9. Minnesota has nearly 11,000 lakes. What they don’t tell you is that each one has a million mosquitoes waiting for summer to come out.
8. If you are brave enough to withstand the crowds at the Minnesota State Fair, be prepared to find more fried foods on a stick than a candy store in Disneyland.
7. The cuisine in St. Cloud is becoming more diverse. Now you can substitute Norwegian lutefisk with the tasty Somali sambusa.
6. I am beginning to appreciate ice hockey, although it will take time to figure out the various penalties. For instance, I am still confused between butt-ending and high sticking.
5. I am told that all Minnesotans have been ice fishing — the rest of us have watched the news where a truck has gone through the ice on a not-quite-frozen lake.
4. If you Google celebrity sightings in St. Cloud, you get Garrison Keillor, football player Chris Kluwe, and Kim Kardashian in 2011. Mayor Dave Kleis: I guess you and I don’t count.
3. I continue to be impressed with how nice Minnesotans are. For example, when I’ve asked what people think about an idea and they say “That’s interesting or That’s different,” what they really mean is “That’s a really stupid idea!”
2. The source of the mighty Mississippi is Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. A raindrop falling in Lake Itasca reaches the Gulf of Mexico in about 90 days, which is about the same time that it takes to get your travel authorization approved at St. Cloud State.
1. The only thing that works harder than a Husky is a pack of Huskies.
