Bastards.
Someone plowed into my car in the past day or so. They left the headlight dangling and almost ripped the grill off of the front after closer inspection. I suspect this happened at some point late last night when some drunk a-hole wanted to do a 3-point turn on the street. The car was fine yesterday. I was walking over to the Halsted Halloween parade to find Kevin and Dop (Kevin, sorry to have missed you) when I discovered this very sad sight. I'm going to haul it into the closest collision place tomorrow a.m. and then hoof it to my school placement in the suburbs via CTA. Should be fun.

I know, I know. Things could definitely have been worse. I could have been IN the car, or they could have caved in the entire side of the car. But still, it's a pain in the ass, and I'm not looking forward to paying the deductible.

Bastard ass faces! May their cowardly, drunken lives be forever cursed. So there.

Also, there were dumplings. In Texas.
Major Congratulations to Robin who opened up his dumpling shop, Kuai, this past Friday in Dallas, Texas. He is my hero, he put so much hard work, blood and grit into this thing with very little complaint.

West Point loveliness.

More West Point foliage.

Anne and Suzi, the lovely bride.

Check out the chapel. How lovely and Gothic is that??

Anne and I got to pose with the groom.

Suzi and Tom even had their big day emblazoned on the water bottles they provided on the bus.

Very nice touch.

Major thanks to Anne for providing all of these pictures! My camera is long dead and I rely on the kindness of my friends to share.

West Point Nuptuals
I flew over to the east coast this past weekend to attend the aforementioned wedding of Suzi and Tom. I got in late on Friday night to lovely Newark International Airport. My flight was an hour delayed, but it worked out well because I arrived in time for Anne to swoop in and get me on the way to upstate New York. (Thank you, Anne!).

We checked into the hotel at around 11, and then caught up for awhile before conking out around midnight.
Saturday was the day of the wedding so after supping at a local diner, we threw on our clothes and got on the bus to go 20 miles to the West Point campus. Upstate New York was awash in leaves turning, and it was downright stunning. Our bus wound around the impressive West Point campus before stopping at one of the chapels there (the highest point on campus, I'll have you know).
Suzi and Tom's ceremony was moving and lovely. Suzi looked graceful and beautiful and I teared up as she walked down the aisle with her parents.
After the ceremony, we loaded onto the busses for a tour of the West Point campus before heading to one of the alumni houses for the Chinese tea ceremony and the reception.
We also managed to catch up with Clarence and Jonathan and a few other people that I haven't seen for a varying amount of time. Some old faces from China too, which was cool. One couple that I knew in Beijing has since moved to the States and had a baby who I wanted to eat up, he was so luscious.
The reception was a blast. Dinner was amazing (there are no words to describe the salad: brown sugared pecans and pears and apples on greens = heaven.) and the DJ pumped out the 80s tunes. So fun. Definitely one of the more super fun weddings I've been to. Suzi and Tom put together an amazing weekend for everyone.
So after brunching on Sunday, Anne drove me over to Newark where I discovered my flight was delayed two hours. I got into Chicago at around 8:45 and next thing I know it was time to head to school in the morning. Back into the grind, but well worth it after an amazing weekend.

Congratulations again to Suzi and Tom.

Success
Last night we had another book club meeting (I can't believe a month has passed already) and the book was one that Lauren suggested. It was called Nice Big American Baby, a collection of short stories by Judy Budnick. Run, don't walk, to find and read this book now, because it was excellent. I suspect that I had read her novel once before a couple of years ago and was sad when I saw that she didn't have anything else out there. I'm going to try to find that novel again. Anyway, it was cool because we sat and discussed the book for at least 40 minutes last night before devolving into speech language-pathology talk (there was an actual heated discussion as to whether DPS--Deep Pharyngeal Stimulation, I believe--is an effective treatment for swallowing).

Actually, I need to stop by the library today because I need some fun plane reading because...it's Suzi and Tom's wedding this weekend! I am very, very excited for them and for me because it'll be a wee vacation.

Sleep monster
At the end of this past week I felt another cold creep up on me. I think that it was due to a combination of not getting adequate sleep during the week and being surrounded by sniffling kids all the time.

This weekend I made up for it, though. Friday night I fell asleep at midnight and didn't get up till around 9. Last night I fell asleep before midnight and didn't get up till 9:30. It truly was awesome. AND I feel like my cold is going away.

Super Daaaawwwwg

Yesterday I coaxed Todd into driving out to the way north of Chicago so we could try Superdawg, a hot dog drive-in place. We had heard its praises being sung on "Check Please," and I had to try it.
The verdict? The food was yummy. I had a cheeseburger was very tasty. The fries were nice and crisp like I like them too. We split a chocolate milkshake, and sure enough it was super thick so the straw stood up straight, as promised.

The downside? It was pricey. The burger and fries were almost $5, which was okay I guess, but a hot dog and fries, which is what Todd had, cost the same thing. You can get it for waaay cheaper at any other Chicago hot dog joint in town.
It was also kind of confusing. You didn't know whether spaces were for parking for inside dining or for car hop service. We opted for car hop service. It was a first-time experience, but as Todd commented, "it kind of sucks to eat in your car." True thing.

But, still yummy overall. I'm glad that we got to try it.

October Weekend

Friday night I went with Todd to see The Evens play (Ian Mackaye and a woman who may or may not be his wife) at the Pulaski Park Field House. A few cool things about the show:

1. It was early, so it started at 8 and ended at 9. Short and sweet.
2. It only cost $5 to get in.
3. The Pulaski Park Field House if awesome: it was his huge cavernous room with a large stage with a massive painting adorning it--the perfect room for a party.
4. The show was fun. I don't know much about Fugazi, but I liked the music by the Evens which was in turns slow and quiet and then raucous and louder.
5. There was audience participation involved. There was a singalong and at one point the band urged the audience to whistle in unison at the start of one song...with the echo from the room the effect was weird and haunting.
6. Todd told me that they had a song on some children's compilation called "Vowel Movement," which made me love them a lot.
7. Out of curiosity, I looked up Ian MacKaye on google, and it spit up this interview with him from Salon back in 2001. There's a great story about why he now responds to high schoolers contacting him when they're writing reports.

Beyond that, we met up with the Northwestern ladies later that night which was a good time. The rest of the weekend has been spent pretending to do work, going out to dinner. Todd treated me to Wishbone last night, which was yummy. We tried to go to Hopleaf which is supposed to have an awesome selection of beer and a good menu, but they offered us an 1.5-2 hour wait when we got there around 9, so that was a no-go.

I'm also trying to study for my quarter's first midterm which is on Tuesday. It's hard to get motivated.

One more thing: I started watching episodes of "The Wire" for this season, and I am completely hooked. I've caught up fully, and zoomed over to netflix to put season 2 and 3 high in my queue.

When I should be doing work...

I got caught up on the weemee website. Go there and make a wee you! I want to see what it looks like.

"But You Can Call Me Il"

This is awesome. From Harper's Magazine, a collection of titles "allegedly used by prominent leaders from 160 nations around the world" to refer to Kim Jong-Il announced on North Korean television.

Some of the list is as follows:

Greatest Saint Who Rules with Extensive Magnanimity
Lode Star of the Twenty-First Century
Best Leader Who Realized Human Wisdom
Leader with Extraordinary Personality
Perfect Picture of Wisdom and Boldness

and last, but not least....

Eternal Bosom of Hot Love

(via themorningnews)

Tuesdays
I like it when Mondays are off so Tuesdays are the beginning of the week. I keep on looking ahead and Thursday is day after tomorrow! It's practically the end of the week already!

I'm trying to be good and get organized in terms of school work. I'm also trying to get back on the workout train and eating healthier. I am brimming with good intentions for virtue!

And that's all that's been going on with me. Except that Saturday was Mom's birthday (Happy Birthday, Mom!). I celebrated by going to Greektown with Todd and having some moussaka (yummy). It was my first time in Greektown, although I guess it's not so much a 'town' as a 'block.' The place we ate was really charming, though, with garden seating which was perfect since the weather this weekend was flawless (sunny, clear, in the 70s).

That night we went to Todd's cousin's wedding. It was a very nice, classy affair. Huge with 10 bridesmaids (!) and an ice sculpture and stuff. The wedding reception was held in a hotel type place that was also housing another reception. We walked into the other reception by mistake and realized our error when we couldn't find the seating cards and didn't recognize the bridesmaid dresses. We ran into Todd's Uncle Pat at the doorway; he realized that he was at the wrong place as well but not before he got a drink at the open bar, so he just took his drink with him to the right wedding.

Congratulations to Zack, Jenny, and Baby Josh!

Zack and Jenny became parents a couple of days ago, which is exciting and great. Josh is a looker, isn't he?

Just Try to Choke Me Now.
I attended a Crisis Prevention Training at my school placement today, which means I learned how to defuse escalating crisis/behavior situations, both verbal and physical. It was helpful information, and I wish that I knew some of this before since it probably would have helped me in terms of behavior management in clients past. What's nice is that it was proof to me that working with the TBI kids this summer definitely educated me in terms of some of this (at least the verbal). I rocked during some of the role plays today.

But what's cool is that we learned defensive reactions of what to do if struck or grabbed, including hair pulling, choking, hitting, kicking, etc. If someone tries to choke me, I will so be able to slip out of their grip. And if some buster on the street tries to grab me, at least I'm theoretically aware of what I need to do.

In other news, I popped in Season 2 of "Lost" tonight and that equals trouble. I'm captured.