Road trip!

I wasn't feeling totally road-trip ready until this evening. I attended a meeting -- a meeting featuring Power Point presentations. Power Point presentations read aloud to me. Garrrrrr! Power Points are not meant to be read aloud. It's an aid! Not a set of visual notecards. Honestly. I am no public speaker, but I don't read to people unless I'm, you know, reading to people. I'm awesome at reading to people. But not at meetings.

So BFF Julie is moving to California, just bought a car (today!) and is heading this way to pick me up for the ride from DC.

We'll drive there -- we've got a few routes to choose from, a new stereo to test out, cup holders to fill, BFF-fun to have and miles to go. I'll do some studying as we go, breathe some fresh non-Chicago air, see some parts of the world I've never seen and fly back home to my B after a few days. Can't wait!!!

This pic, like most of the ones I post - since 2011 Chicago isn't super photogenic just yet - is from our honeymoon. After two nights of camping at Channel Islands National Park we spent two nights at the Kon Tiki Inn in Pismo Beach. It was heavenly -- like the perfect four-day combo with delicious clam chowder as an extra-special bonus. California = awesome.

Signed a lease... what's next?

We signed a lease for a new apartment. It's different than our current home in a lot of ways -- it's rehabbed, modern, spacious in sensible places (not spacious in the dining room, which becomes a haven of crap) and totally, unexpectedly exciting.

It's the top floor of a two-flat, a little north of where we are now. Still really close the the Brown Line, walk-able to the grocery, near a few bars, on a street with a noisy bus, just how we like it.

Now that we've got a lease signed I can start planning for our new space!

Ideas rumbling through my head:

• Buy some Ikea storage to house our computer stuff so it's not all cord-crazy and dusty looking.
  
• Post some art -- specifically photos. We took some great pics on our honeymoon and still need to give wall service things we've bought and never posted. We'll either take action on that stuff or pitch it, as we can't hold on to awesome posters forever. Even if they are awesome. (This means my grand plan to have Ork Poster's heart and brain framed side-by-side will probably wait... but that's a-ok.)
• Keep the bedroom calm and serene. It's already a beautiful shade of blue, so we can just roll with that, keep things simple with neutrals. We might even get a headboard for our bed, which sounds pretty darn grown up, if you ask me.
• Possibly get Brother-In-Law Charlie to make this for the cats! Especially since all their favorite things will be tossed when we move. I'm not moving gross cat stuff further than the alley. It's not totally offensive-looking, right?
• Buy a couch. A new couch!?!? We've never owned a new couch. In fact, I've owned a used couches from my family, a red Salvation Army couch, a couch from a pre-owned furniture place (where Tony Four-Fingers worked), a friend's sectional couch passed along, a used Ikea couch carried several blocks by Julie B and I, and our current couches which were moved here from across the hall when our neighbor-friend moved. A new couch might be pretty awesome. I'm actually certain of that.
  
• More stuff, and much more tossing of stuff. The tossing is pretty important -- especially when we realize how much passed along, used, why-do-we-have-this? type stuff we have here. I'll keep thinking! Hooray!
  

A Transcript Evaluation (How awesome is college?!?)

I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I loved it. I continue to love it. I have a Illinois garbage can, an Illinois welcome mat, about 20 hoodies/t-shirts and a degree from a school I truly love.

I met my best friends in the world at Illinois. One of them is a beautiful adventurer who let me visit her mud hut in Mali, lived with me in DC and is letting me help her move to Los Angeles. The other is the most humble brilliant person I know (especially at law, international studies, grammar and trivia) who always finds time between her studies, work and rocking out to send me sweet emails. I am a better person for knowing these two. I'm lucky to have many other amazing friends from Illinois to boot.

I met my husband at Illinois. It wasn't love at first sight, but I was hooked.

I met our friend who performed our wedding. He wore an Elvis-style leisure suit my first Halloween on campus. He wore a seersucker suit to a play with me and BFF Jules. He ran through The Daily Illini newsroom with blue icing smeared on his face quoting Braveheart. Today he's still one of my favorite people - he always makes me laugh and he always makes me think.

I met mayors, Pulitzer Prize winners, cartoonists, racist crazies, state reps, candidates of all sorts, police officers, scholars, bartenders, drunks, churchy folks, the president of CNN, drag queens and Illinois Gov. George Ryan (before he was a crook).

If you look at my college transcript you won't see that. How can that be?

That 'C' in Astronomy 121: The Solar System? Look at the feature stories I wrote for The Daily Illini as a freshman. I woke up at 3 a.m. to ride along in garbage trucks! I loved it.

I didn't rock out at Econ? I can tell you how Champaign-Urbana promotes the drinking culture of Illinois. I can explain the liquor licenses, enforcement patterns and bar practices that all work together to keep bars running and college students paying fines. Between the University and the two cities, it doesn't seem like many people figure this silliness out, but I can. That's better than understanding silly supply and depand charts for sure.

A 'B-' in Political Science 355: Constitution & Civil Liberties (I've got a minor in Poli Sci -- I think this is the only place where I can brag about that!) is hot shit! It's excellent. A 'B-' sounds so terrible, but seriously that wasn't easy potatoes. It was a hardcore lecture class with just two exams all about U.S. Supreme Court decisions. I can tell you at thing or two about the Supreme Court.

I can tell you that a day after 9/11 my (very conservative) Political Science Professor told us: “This is the time to stand up. Enough already. We either have the will or we have no will.” I took three Political Science courses with Ira Carmen. I still consider him a great mind and someone who speaks without candor. And I'm still proud of my non-A grades in his classes because I learned so much. Seeing that people who disagree with me might have an intelligent reason for doing so, that one side isn't right or wrong, that basic ideals dictate how we perceive situations is still important to me. But it's not on my transcript.

That 'A' in Journ 380: Reporting 2?!? That was everything to me. I worked harder than I thought possible. I made connections about housing policies and how those policies affected poor people. I called Professor Leon Dash (who is incredibly intimidating, awesome and really nice when you bother him on a Saturday) when a source for my story asked me for money. That grade looks just like the other 'A's on my transcript but it's NOT like those grades. (Certainly not like my 'A' in Kines 104: Ice Skating!) That grade was a triumph. That 'A' meant the world to me. It still does.

I'll take a little bit of pride in that 'C' in EEE 104: Environmental Biology because I don't think I went to that class more than twice. Seriously. Shameful? Nah. I'm sure I was doing important stuff instead of going to class.

Surely there were moments when I was lazy or drunk or stupid or ridiculous. I completely admit that while college was work (especially for someone who happily worked nearly-full-time outside of classes), it was also a ton of fun.

I kissed boys. I sang karaoke. I ate frozen yogurt for dinner and questionable pizza at 3 a.m. I volunteered. I took adventures. I expanded my mind. I questioned everything.

I learned to state my opinion. I learned to run a meeting. I learned to teach. I learned how to hide a fake ID and avoid police (and then proceed to almost collapse in fear of almost being caught). I learned that weather experts can't predict the weather very accurately past 3 days ahead. I learned that at a certain point a city can send your parking tickets to whoever owns your car, which might be your parents, which is decidedly uncool.

I take all those moments - stupid, smart and otherwise - and feel proud. I see orange and blue and I smile. I send my transcripts along to schools who I want to accept me into nursing programs and hope they see all that's between the lines. There's amazing stuff there.

Good grief!

Lots going on... definitely some shining moments of triumph, but also some downers lately... To list it out for you all:

• I didn't get into University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Nursing. This continues to be pretty awful. It was my top choice for many reasons -- but I'm on to whatever's next. Maybe UIC will be a choice for something later on (how many degrees do I want?!?). From the website, it appears I'm in at DePaul, so that's something. DePaul isn't nearly as good a program as UIC or as affordable. I'm still finishing up my Loyola application (second top choice) and have Resurrection University and Rush University to consider as well. The worst part of this: the torment of thinking that my grades from 10 years ago are affecting my life. I wouldn't take back a moment of undergrad -- those were some of the most educational, awesome years of my life -- but I hate that someone takes something serious away from those grades... for another post...
• We took the cats to the vet. As much as a fan I am of doctors and medicine for humans, I'm not as into kitty-doctoring. Mr. Meowgi appears to have asthma. Dizzy hardly has any teeth. (What?!?) I don't know what to do with all this information from the vet... but I do know that Meowgi's been a little sick for the last few days - poor pal! He's moving along to feeling better, but for now I'm blaming those quacks at the vet for our sad cat.
  
• I started riding my bike again! Hooray! On Tuesday I was reminded of the perils of biking in the city -- I almost hit a cab that cut me off (making a right turn in front of me) and then about a half mile later as I slowed down to arrive at school a guy opened a cab door on me. I tumbled very safely off my bike, swore, freaked out a bit and was completely unharmed. Phew! I truly bike carefully - I obey traffic laws and watch myself. Just the same it's rough out there. Thursday, though, my ride was perfect!
• I've got a sniffly combo of a cold and allergies. I blame cabdrivers.

This upcoming week is my spring break - excited to get a ton done. Want to know what? Sure you do!

1. Body Worlds Exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry - for a school project.
2. Clean oven, bathroom, fridge, etc... to make moving day a tiny bit easier. Also clean fans with awesome fan-cleaning device lent to me by my fam!
3. Run!
4. Buy a new helmet for biking. I hear that helmets can handle one fall so my awesome pink one is out of business.
   
5. Pack! Four boxes down...
6. Throw away stuff! Where did all this stuff come from?
7. Study.
8. Finish school projects.
9. Find a new apartment - we're on the hunt!

This is from our post-game (actually it was during the game, since it was freezing out) Cubs celebration. I'm reminded to maintain my Go-Cubs-Go-attitude. Go Cubs!

April showers... approaching

It's about to storm and I'm going to bed as soon as I can, but a quick post.

Julie is visiting Chicago for her birthday - hooray! We had a fabulous weekend -- visiting the fam in Rockford (hibachi grill, birthday cake, a fire outside, lounging, shopping, delicious food, cocktails and wine!), dinner with friends and Clinique Bonus-ing.

Tomorrow I've got a crazy-good day. The schedule:

• 5:45 - leave to take the train to Evanston
• 6:10 - arrive in Evanston, dash to swimming at the Y, then to work by 7 a.m.
• 7-5 - work! Dash out a little before 5.
• 5:02 - Take the Metra back to Chicago, go home/to the car and pick up the cats from the vet.
  
• Then finish these things as soon as possible: drop cats off, change clothes, hop on train.
• Head downtown for Julie's birthday dinner! Celebrate and fine-dine with my BFF on her birthday. Wonderful!

Julie leaves Tuesday and we're going to make the most of the next few weeks - packing, organizing, purging, running and finding a new apartment. In less than a month I'll be finished with (hopefully) my final pre-nursing course! And getting ready to move to a new place! Hooray!

Here are the cats - they're hoping for a two-level home.

Whoa!

There are windows open in our house! Open windows!

It's almost certainly momentary -- but it's something.

Today we spent a lot of time strolling and running in our neighborhood - leaving us feeling all the more like staying here forever, but not sure about affording/wanting the place we want around here... Oh! Apartment hunting...

We also cleaned out a pit of a hall closet - leading us to toss several pairs of crappy shoes, some never-used reusable grocery bags and other crap. Moving will go smoothly if we keep up with this tossing behavior.

Anyway, best friend Julie is coming to Chicago tomorrow. I'm meeting her downtown and staying at her Hard Rock Hotel room Monday night. Then B and some friends and I will go to the Cubs game while Julie is at her interview. Busy indeed!

Things I see while running

I totally forgot that running is like taking a little adventure. Like urban hiking. I usually just weave along side streets in my neighborhood, listening to my iShuffle and checking out everything I pass.

Today on my run I saw:

• That B's car has four flat tires. He's left it parked on a certain side street since September. Seriously. I'm completely uninvolved in this and think it's ridiculous, but 4 for 4 flat tires is pretty outstanding, right?
• A few apartment buildings to check out.
• Ravenswood Billboard Factory - from a distance. It's really hard to find the actual building though. I'm looking this one up. I saw the upper part with all the windows, but not the base of the building. Where the hell is it? (Note: Ravenswood Avenue is on both sides of the Metra tracks, near the El and little tricky. I will find it.)
• Some hints of spring like flowers starting to pop up.
• A nice big dog whose owner kept it from getting close to me. Thanks!
• Swings tied to tree branches - fun!
• Too many Chicagoans wearing winter coats. It's warm out! I wore shorts! It's April. C'mon.

Another run tomorrow... Yay spring!

This photo is from our honeymoon when we visited Ravenswood Winery in Sonoma. We love their wine and I usually wear my Ravenswood Winery hat (from my parents) when I run in my neighborhood, Ravenswood!

Waiting to hear!

I applied to the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing in January. This month - "the end of April" - I'll hear whether my essays, transcripts, recommendations, resume, writing and potential for leadership make me a good fit for their small, well-regarded program. I'm very nervous.

I feel like I'm a good fit for UIC, but I'm aware that many others might be good fits too. So the wait is on...

Today I'm taking a run in the warm weather, meeting a former work collegue for dinner and using a Groupon I bought this week. BFF Julie comes to Chicago Monday for a week, then B and I plan to head to DC for a weekend.

All this should make the waiting easier, right?

Photo above is from my trip to DC last fall. We were at a bar, not "back in Panama" as Cindy said at the time. I guess the scuffed up wall is decor.