Doooone..
..with summer school. It went by quickly and there was a flurry of paperwork by the end, but it was outstandingly easy work and I will definitely sign on to do it again next year. It's kind of like being on vacation, but having an excuse to wake up in the morning. I was done every day by 11 a.m., people. Just in time to listen to Fresh Air on NPR on the way home.

I finished Courtroom 302, which was great. Really, really interesting and I learned lots about the criminal court system (for instance, I hadn't realized what a teeny-tiny percentage of cases end up going to a bench or jury trial). It was written in the late 90s, so there were historically significant cases going on. I was sad when I turned the last page and need to find some more non-fiction like it stat. Bogira, the author, delved in the background of the people in the cases as well and it was downright fascinating.

Speaking of "fascinating," my Mom told me the other day that my blog entries have been on the drier side of late, so I commit to try to inject more zest.

So, I'll share a description of my totally favorite kid on my caseload this summer. He is five, short, and has a body like a round rubber ball. He sports a loud, hammy personality which is communicated through his deep, almost guttural voice. He is crack at recognizing the slightest trace of a voice. If I happen step in the room and whisper to his teacher, he stops what he's doing and yells out in a staccato manner: "Ms. M_! You there?! Ms. M_!" One day I was working with him, and while usually a bit lazy he was working like a maniac because his teacher promised him potato chips afterwards (or, "putatah ships," according to him).

I was describing him to Todd, who was like "Is this kid Redd Foxx?" And it hit me like a message from the heavens, because he nailed it. This five year totally is Redd Foxx re-incarnated. I was treating language (while verbose, he can't answer wh-questions well) but this kid is also vision impaired. Our friend is going to start work as a vision teacher with the school district, and I *pray* that this student ends up on his caseload because I wan to hear about him for years to come.

Williams Syndrome
This week, The New York Times Magazine has a long article about Williams Syndrome, which while I hesitate to call it "my favorite," definitely stands out as one of the most interesting to me.

People with Williams Syndrome tend to be cognitively low and are characterized by love, love, loving social interaction but having nary a clue as how to read social signs or dynamics. Really interesting stuff, so read the article to find out more.

Book hangover
I've been reading like crazy. I finished Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven this past weekend. It was pretty engrossing and he has an easy, informal manner of writing that makes it easy to dive into the subject matter. It was enjoyable and I learned more about Mormonism than I knew before (which was not much). After reading it, I feel like everything is about Mormonism now: HBO's Big Love, NPR pieces I've been hearing recently, Mitt Romney.

This morning I finished wolfing down Alex Kotlowitz's There Are No Children Here, which was really powerful. He followed two young boys in the Chicago projects for a couple of years in the mid-80s and there's a lot of heartbreaking stuff in there. Your heart yearns for good things to happen for the boys, but there's a lot of emotional beat down. I tried to google the boys' names to see if I could find out what's happened to them since, but nothing. The epilogue does say that the profits from the book was used to set up trust funds for the boys after they finished high school. They've got to be in their 30s now.

I started Courtroom 302 today, about a year in a courtroom in Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courts (alliteration, anyone?). I love hard-nosed social issues reporting, and so far this is in that vein. So far, so good. In fact, I'm about to take a shower right now and then head out and read in the sun now.

Further books on my list: In Cold Blood, Helter Skelter, and Ordinary Resurrections.

p.s. Funnily enough, as I was scanning the channels this afternoon, the 1993 TV version of "There are no children here" is on Oxygen, starring Ms. Winfrey herself. I hadn't even realized that they made one! I've been watching for it for the past three minutes, and it's definitely drama-ed up. Meh.

Wolf dude.
(via NG)

You must watch this:
A Man Among Wolves, which I watched this past weekend on National Geographic. It's crazy.

Brief synopsis is that this guy raised a pack of wolf cubs for the past few years and basically spent all of his time with them apart from a couple of hours here and there. Interestingly, there's some sort of nature preserve in the UK that lets him roll around with them, feed with them, and the public watches. He didn't have any prior scientific training, but knew enough to teach his wolf cubs different kinds of howls and different wolf behavior.

One highlight is that when we first meet him, he is the alpha male in the pack so is entitled to the heart, lungs, and liver in the kills. So, since he can't digest the raw meat of these organs in the various dead animals he hauls in, he goes in beforehand and cuts out those organs, goes home and fries them up a bit, and then inserts them back in to the guts of the dead animal. Only then does he bring in the feast for the pack and he gets down in there and rips out those organs on gnaw on. You have to see this.

The other highlights is footage of him with the cubs when he first adopts them teaching them to howl. Baby wolf cubs learning to howl = ultimate in cuteness.

Passive Aggressive Jerkiness
I love this new-ish web site: passiveaggressivenotes. com
There is so, so much awesome passive aggressiveness to be read.

(side note: charles emailed me about this site too. My friends know me well).

Gluttony
I went to the library today and found three books that I've been scrounging around for for the past few months as well as five others. I have EIGHT books to read. I feel that glowing feeling one gets after one has a good workout or if one finally completed a coveted purchase.

Notes:
Supper club rocks
In our attempt to hit all of the ethnic backgrounds from everyone in the club, we went to Lao Sze Chuan tonight and it was delicious and fun. Next month: bbq!

Half Birthdays rock
Todd treated me to a sumptuous meal at Nacional 27 for my half birthday (which is officially today, actually). Yummy.

Movies rock
We saw "Knocked Up" and it was hands-down great. I was saying beforehand that I was afraid of being disappointed because I had read so many gleaming reviews. But it was really, really funny and really, really sweet. But, it was a little hard to believe that the leading female character ever got with the Seth Rogan character in the first place. But still: great. Go and see it.

Street festivals rock
We went on Sunday evening to the Belmont Music and Arts festival to see Say Hi to Your Mom and the Wrens play. It was lovely and cool last night and perfect music-viewing weather. It felt like vacation.

Swamped.
Things are busy this week. Mainly I'm sad right now because I'm studying/cramming for my geology final for tomorrow (my online course that was meant to be *easy* but has taken me over nine awful months to get through). Enough of that, though. 24 hours from now it will be done.

But lots to catch up on. The family zoomed into town last weekend to attend my belated graduation from grad school. My parents, brothers, and uncles descended upon Chicago and our brood ate our way through the city. Truly, we were a sight to behold. I counted on Monday evening, and it looks like I ate at 12 different eating places with them in the four days they were here, and they hit like 14. I won't bore you with details, but let me just say: on Sunday morning we started with dim sum in Argyle and then walked directly across the street to wolf down some pho. My uncle wanted to taste the Chinese/Vietnamese offerings in Chicago and let me just say that he and my mom loved the hell out of Furama. They both said that their dim sum was better than anything in Maryland and Virginia. Furama gets an enthusiastic thumbsup from the family, which is an honor indeed. Go to Furama, people. Sunday was far from done, since the rest of the day held promises of bao from Wow Bao, drinks at the John Hancock and then an enormous prime rib dinner from Lawrys from fathers day.

Their visit was fun and graduation was all right, but a little underwhelming and a tad bit disorganized. It was actually kind of funny what a clusterfuck it turned into behind the scenes: they actually forgot to announce me! Skipped over my name entirely, so that someone had to rush quietly to the announcer and tell him to announce me before they started with the undergrads. It was okay, though, since I ended up sitting with the end of the alphabet and they were fun.

My school year officially ended but I've started doing extended school year for four weeks. I've been assigned four schools which are located in areas I've never ever been to, so I'm discovering just how large Chicago is. I liken my experience as an itinerant SLP split among four schools to the classic, The Little Prince and how the prince visits all of these different little planets in his travels. Each planet offers its own cultures and experiences and personalities. I will say this: I like two of my schools very much, am relatively okay with one of my schools, and the remaining school is less than impressive. That particular school is where I encountered the rudest classroom teacher I've yet to meet (granted, I haven't met that many). She was pissed off that I was there, and when I told her that one of her kids was on my caseload, she sighed dramatically and loudly and exclaimed: "Well, that's counter-productive!" I kind of wanted to sock her, especially since the kid was sitting there at a table doing NOTHING when I walked in. No paper in front of her...nada. I was gracious though, swallowed my annoyance, and calmly informed the charming instructor of the times that she could expect me every week. After encountering her I realized for real how lucky I've been with my teachers at my present school--the majority of them like having an extra set of hands in the classroom.

Summer school is pretty awesome, though, since it's 3.5 hours a day and four days a week. My kind of schedule!

Creepy.
I love two-year olds the most, but not this scary giant robot they created in Japan to emulate a 2-year old. It would have helped if they had made it short and fat and prone to toddling rather than grown-man sized. To capture how truly chilling it is, make sure you watch the YouTube video. Yikes.
(via neatorama)

Aww
15 reasons that Mr. Rogers was the best neighbor ever

My favorite is the one about Koko.

(via neatorama)

Families and their meals
Two of my favorite things. TIME has this cool photo essay on families around the world, their meals for a week, and the costs. I couldn't decide which one was my favorite. Can you?

Mayfest report
So we did go to Mayfest this past Saturday and it was a lot of fun. Jenny, Todd and I met up first and after getting our giant steins of beer, we hit the fair games. Todd and Jenny shot darts at little balloons and won some klassy pictures. I'm including a shot of our bounty.

Impromptu Joy
I got off the phone tonight with Anne and I noticed that music was reverberating through my courtyard. Sounding like it was a band playing in the park across the street, I slipped on a sweatshirt and my flip flops and wandered outside. Turns out there was a live band, and they were played lively and catchy Irish drinking song type songs. In fact, as I checked out a single flyer posted by the gazebo where the band played, Welles Park has a regular Tuesday night outside concert. Kind of like Wolf Trap/Ravinia for free and right across the street. Not too well advertised, though, because there were like four families scattered on the lawn, but they did come prepared with blankets, snacks, and drinks.

Everyone else there was kind of like me, they stumbled upon it and stuck around. It was lovely and cool out and the sun was setting and the music was upbeat and fun, so I stood there for about forty minutes watching them. And that was great, but not the "impromptu joy" that was first referred to in the blog title. By that, I was referring to one of the other viewers of the band. There was a dad and his teenage son who walked up to watch the same time as I did. The dad stood back and observed with reserve, and the son was the one who displayed tried and true blessed joy. I would guess that he had a more severe form of autism, but more importantly he fricking loved the music and was not afraid to show it. He hopped. He did jumping jacks. He swung his arms. He clapped with outstretched arms. He raised his arms to the sky. During the slower numbers, he stood up close and swayed slowly. I understood where he was coming from because the music made me want to dance too, and it was cool that he could so readily display his enthusiasm.

Psychedelic!
It's Mayfest in Lincoln Square this weekend, which is a little festival full of music, the maypole, and giant steins of beers. It officially started this evening, so I walked through on my way back from my jog to check it out. I'm going again and spending time on Saturday, and I am excited. The first excellent thing about it is that it's FREE.

The second excellent thing about it is that there's music all weekend. When I walked through tonight, it was pretty empty since it just recently finished pouring. A class from the Old Town School of Music (which has a building in the Square) was up on the stage playing. They were a Beatles cover class, so it was an assortment of like 12 people of all ages and all sizes playing various instruments and singing. They were pretty good actually. I stood around and watched them for awhile enjoying the cooler weather post-rain.

There was one dude sitting alone at one table listening and nursing one of the aforementioned giant steins of beer. At one point when the group wrapped up a song, he yelled out: "Play some real classics! Crosby Stills and Nash! Crosby Stills and Nash!"

A lady turned around and informed him that they were strictly Beatles (which the group had announced two minutes ago) and he sheepishly mumbled: "oh."

His sheepishness must have lit a fire under his appreciation, because after that when they wrapped up another song, he was all: "Yeah! YEAH! YEAH!" It was pretty awesome, since the tent was pretty empty still and all you could hear was this guy's verbal support. Then one of the group mentioned that they were going to do another "psychedelic number." The dude got *pumped*!

This was him:
"PSYCHEDELIC!"
" YEAH!"
"PSYCHEDELIC!"
"PSYCHEDELIC!"

I really, really sincerely wish that there was someone there with me to observe this because there was something about the whole thing that was beyond great.

I hope that he's there on Saturday.

Wolf! Wolf!
I know that I say this every time I try a new place, but it's for real this time.

I have a new favorite restaurant in the city. It's Puerto Rican food and it's called Papas Cache Sabroso. We went there for our fourth supper club at the suggestion of a friend of Jenny's in the know, and...bliss. And cheap! And a mom and pop owned place that was busting with character! My favorite.

We ordered tostones and yuca for starters and then I personally ordered the jibarito sandwich, which is a steak sandwich with large plantain in place of bread. And the plantain was deliciously crisp rather than soggy and greasy. The sandwich along with rice and beans cost about $6.

This restaurant is also on the stretch of Division by the Puerto Rican flags and still has flavor. Jenny and Dave on their way there told us that they:
1.) saw a guy riding a bike in a starter cap while an enormous yellow snake was coiled around his body.
2) Jenny had a skateboarder catch a ride by grabbing onto the trunk of her car.

Hot chick.

"Papa" and his baby.

Chick! Freshly sated with lint that he gobbled off of the carpet.

Nicole and Dave, best tablemates ever at the wedding.

Joe and Pam at their sweetheart table with a loving family member. I kept on trying to take a picture of them all night and this was the least crappy, if you can believe it.

Jenny and Brooke--sorority sistahs forever.

Me and my man, kicking it wedding-guest style.

Weddings and Chicks
We got back from a Memorial Day weekend in DC, and it was a whirlwind weekend. Got into town on Saturday afternoon, had dim sum with the family, and then met up with Anne for dinner that night. Sunday we had pho and got to see Des and Bryan for a bit, and then set off to Vienna (a skip from my parents' place) to see Pam and Joe wed. It was quite a lovely wedding, and while not large, virtually teeming with William and Mary folks.

The most hilarious part of the weekend to me is the new addition to our family: Erik's baby chick. It's a science assignment that the people in his class were assigned one newly hatched baby chick a few weeks before the end of school. I suppose it's a lesson in caring for other living things and not being an asshole. Part of the "test," apparently, is whether your baby chick follows you when you walk. And the other part of the test is whether your baby chick is still breathing after the few weeks, since if your baby chick kicks the bucket there goes a fifth of your entire grade. But the kicker is that it's very, very easy for your baby chick to bite the bullet. It can toddle off of tables. It can drown in its own water dish (hence the need to purchase beautifully colored marbles to fill said dish). It is astonishingly easy to step on when it runs under feet. We watched the baby chick eat lint off the carpet (Erik: "It loves eating lint.")--that can't be good for it. It demands 90 degree temperatures to thrive.

(side note: luckily for the baby chick the 90 degree temperature was in full bloom since the upstairs air conditioner broke before it arrived. Don't worry, Erik was comfortable since he sleeps in the icy cool basement. Todd and I got to sleep upstairs in the moist, warm baby-chick inducive temperatures, though. It was awesome).

The baby chick is damn cute (refer to pictures), but it is also loud. It chirps endlessly, but the chirp is so plaintive and never-ending that it more resembles a bleat. And the bleat is all the more strident when it realizes that it has been left alone in the room. You can seriously hear this pathetic, constant cry ring throughout the whole of my parents' house. I was housed next door to the baby chick, so I was awoken by its cries at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. Awesome!

I can recognize any road sign you send my way
I ventured to the Northside Chicago DMV today to get my license changed from VA to IL. It was a successful venture, and not as painful as I thought it would be. I had to take the written test which I studied for the night before. Good thing, too, because it might have been touch and go if I hadn't. The grizzled character who scored my test harrumphed with satisfaction when he wrote "-0" on my test (believe it!). I confessed that I spent the previous evening studying for it, and he was like: "That's all we ask." That grizzled guy and me? We shared a moment right then.

It was a little bittersweet to give up my VA license, but so it must be.

Next on my list is to change my plates. I didn't have the forms nor the fortitude to do it today.

Illinois DMV isn't open on the weekends, btw, which is downright odd to me. VA DMV at least pretended to be accommodating by opening for like 45 minutes on Saturday mornings.

Change is good.
I know.
But I changed my blog template on a whim, and I am a little bit rattled! I think I may have lost all of my comments!

Now to figure out how to add comments to this current template.

This is a very sad first hand account of a visiting professor at a small, historically Black university in Alabama. The apathy he describes in many of the students he encounters I believe is a result of the family and social situations in which the students were raised, but sadly I think that some readers of this article will quickly attribute it to race (just read the comments--hooee). It's an interesting read, though, and I recommend that you also link back and read his article about his first year there (I'm linking to the second year's reprisal).

We always talk about the culture of literacy on the job and how it affects academic performance. I was very lucky to be brought up in a family where books are treasured and abounded, newspapers were strewn about, and magazines were stacked up against one another. The world is your oyster, kid. One of my nostalgic favorites is Little Women, which my parents gave me in 1984 (the year I turned 8) in a beautiful hardcover version which I still have somewhere. One of my dad's friends regularly gifted us with Penguin classics he found in the bookstores of Pakistan, where we were at the time. One of them was My Family and Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell, and that book remains one of my beloved classics which I never would have discovered on my own. I constantly realize how lucky I was to have stumbled into a family that reads, when I see so many of my sweet and curious kids have homes starved of books and reading.

The article touches a lot on intellectual curiosity and how it is lacking in so many college students. I admit that I was guilty of phoning it in during some of my classes, and imagine that my professors were...less than impressed. Maybe things felt less pressing or something. I regret that I didn't suck the marrow out of the opportunity more then, but so much of college also revolved around one's social life. With some relief I can say that my intellectual curiosity has been fired up again working in my current field. I find myself reading research in my downtime on child language. I guess because it's interesting, but also because I can put it to USE now. Still not loving my geology course (that is almost over, praise the gods), but at least I'm trying to absorb some of it.

Happy Birthday, Des!

WooHOOO!

Put her in my pocket and run.
I adore one of my non-attending kids that I see who just turned three. She is outrageously, scandalously, knock-yourself-over-the-head cute. I see her every week for 45 minutes and we're totally in love with each other. She's such a good kid: if she gets a knock, she shakes it off and continues on good-naturedly and she always, always helps to clean up at the end. Her speech is pretty unintelligible and she drops final consonants, so when she says "let's clean up!" it comes out "leh klee uh!" It's terrible to say, but it adds to the cuteness.

Her latest thing is that she loves the fish tank in the hallways, but since she can't yet produce the f-sound, it comes out: "Shi-!" when we visit it.

One of her deals is that she substitutes 'sh' for lots of sounds (as seen in the example given above), and today we were playing with animal magnets. One of them was a cat, so when she saw it, she exclaimed... (wait for it)
"SHITTY!"

I also see her brother on another day, and her mom told me that whenever this little one hears mention of him "going to speech" she puts her hands on her hips and says "No! It's L___'s turn for speech!" (she's L__, if it wasn't clear)

I've been lazy
That's why I haven't posted in a while. Nothing bad to report, though, and work is winding down with only five more weeks left to the school year! These months have certainly been zooming by.

What's new?
Well, I went to the best beer garden ever with Laura, Megan, and Lauren. Moody's Pub is nestled in the north-northside of the city and it boasted an absolutely enormous outside area that is overflowing with plants and even had a little waterfall in the corner. We dined on Moody burgers (which won a best-burgers award) and drank cheap beer out of the pitcher and weren't rushed by anyone, even though lines began forming for tables outside on a Monday night. As the evening fell, the little candles on the tables kept the ambiance romantic. Another place I'm taking you people to when you come and visit me in Chicago.

My new neighborhood continues to charm. It's busting with families with round and rosy cheeked toddlers being hauled around in red wagons. Today on my walk home from the grocery store, I had two separate fat bulldog sightings (that's a good thing). The other Saturday, Todd and I sat down and watched a little league game for about half an hour since there are billions going on at all times.

Happy belated Mothers Day, Mom! Since my mom is halfway across the country, I tagged along with Todd to Wilmington and helped celebrate with his family. His dad grilled delicious steaks and Todd and I made baked macaroni and cheese (with breadcrumbs and everything!) and apple cake with fresh cut apples. Afterward we walked around his parents' place in the country and it was pretty awe-inspiring with the afternoon sun warming the farming fields. We had to stay clear of some crazy barking dogs along the way, though. His mom said that she usually brings big stick for that purpose.

Lastly, we celebrated someone's birthday at Guthrie's with a rousing game of Family Feud with this large group of people the other weekend. It was like the game show, except in board game form. I don't know when this game was made or who made it, but it sucked. One of the questions was: "What's another word for nerd?" Now, in my book and in the world of what is right, a "nerd" is based on someone who is book smart but is more lacking in social graces. The answers that the stupid board game included were "idiot" and "moron" and the like. I was all pissed off about it, because that is just not right because nerds are smart. I'm still kind of pissed off about it because I had to use italics twice in that last sentence. I guess that if they surveyed Americans for the answers then I should be angry with my fellow countrymen. Stupid fellow countrymen. Clearly, you are not nerds.

One more notch in the dumpling belt
Kuai Dumpling and Soups gets a mention in a nation-wide article on restaurant news!

Happy Birthday, Laura!

And the birthday streak continues!

Payoff
I can't describe how perfectly perfect the weather in Chicago has been over the last two weekends. So perfectly perfect, I have serious troubles finding the words to communicate this. Suffice it to say, it's been sunny, clear, blue, warm and downright lovely after six months of snow and gray.

How has the perfectly perfect weather been enjoyed?
-Walking extensively throughout Lincoln Square and Ravenswood
-Walking extensively throughout Logan Square and Humboldt Park
-Walking extensively and doing some imitation of jogging along the lakefront (blue, blue, blue)
-Soaking up the sun in Welles Park and gobbling up a novel.

*sigh*

Random Bits
--The other weekend Todd and I spent a couple of hours visiting Bear Claw, who was recording at Steve Albini's studio. On a sidenote, the studio is close to my workplace, and I drive past it daily. So close that the little coffee shop I go to sometimes has a quickly scrawled sign that mentions that Iggy Pop had come in and commented on the place's "coolness." Iggy Pop and the Stooges recorded at the studios at some point in the past year, I guess. I had never been in a recording studio before, and this was the real deal. We sat there and watched Steve Albini wolf down some tamales and then a few days later we saw him play with Shellac at a packed benefit show at Subterranean.

--Tonight was meeting three of Jenny's and my monthly supper club (goal: to conquer every unknown eatery in Chicago). So far, we've done Ethiopian, Mexican (after the Costa Rican place of choice was closed down unexpectedly and temporarily), and tonight was pizza in a liquor store called Marie's Pizza and Liquors. You walk through the liquor store to get to the restaurant, which is complete with plastic wood paneling and a glassy, bronzey Chicago skyline. Inside the liquor store, there's even a little "vineyard" area where you can eat. The neighborhood it's in is very diverse and I've never ventured into it before. On the way there, Todd and I spotted some woman who was walking and pulling her pants up from her thighs to her waist. Yeah, I don't know either.

--Last week we were watching "Cheaters" and after watching a particularly sad case of a gracious middle aged woman being cuckolded by her rude husband I sighed--SANS IRONY--"At least she called 'Cheaters.'"

Happy Birthday to Suzi!
April is the birthday month for many of my favorite people.

Hope that 31 is treating you great already, girl.

Happy Birthday to Todd!

The best boyfriend ever turns 29 today. Live up that last year in your 20s!

Happy 31st to ANNE!

My dear and treasured friend is celebrating her birthday today. I wish that I could have been there with.

This needed to be blogged:
In this week's New Yorker, there is a piece in the "Talk of the Town" section about the whole Imus debacle by Nick Paumgarten (side opinion: I never listened to Imus before, but *how* did he get away with this stuff for so long? I can imagine him being confused for being shot down for a comment that he made in passing when he produced so much ridiculously horrible stuff before for SO long).

Anyway.

Here's part of the article and it's too rich not to be shared:

Snoop Dogg, carefully parsing the application of "ho," distanced himself and his rapper peers from the I-man. "We are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls," he told MTV News. "We're talking about ho's that's in the hood that ain't doing shit, that's trying to get a nigga for his money. These are two separate things."

Busy?
I've been busy for the last week at work or so, which is not the norm since my caseload is pretty low and I'm only at one school. But the past week has been the perfect storm since report cards are due and a couple of evaluations needed to be done and reports needed to be written and I had volunteered to teach a Kindergarten class about "speech helpers" (that would be the lips, tongue, etc). And that meant planning and preparing for said class. The good news is that my supervisor lent me this awesome plastic mouth model called Mr. Mouth (with a tongue that you can manipulate--too cool!). AND, last Friday at our SLP professional development meeting we had this awesome presentation from a SLP from MN about bringing music into treatment. We even got four of her CDs to use. I can't describe to you how adorable these songs are: they're all language-rich and simple and all about stimulation, and often set to oldies. My personal favorite is "The Carbo Chorus" which is a multi-syllabic masterpiece of "spaghetti's" and "potatoes" set to a military march. It makes you want to dance, listening to these songs. Anyway, to make a long, monotonous story short--I found a couple of songs on her CDs that are about using your tongue tip and also about making labial (lip) sounds. Perfect.

I did the class today and it lasted exactly the hour that I promised and the kids loved it. The music SLP presenter suggested bringing in instruments for kids to help them become more engaged, so I accomplished a little low-tech magic. I found some plastic eggs that were sitting around in my old apartment and then filled them with tiny amounts of dried macaroni. Voila--instant percussion instruments. I was pretty proud of myself and it re-affirmed my suspicion that *nothing* must ever be thrown away. I ran into one of the kids from the class today at the end of the day and he called out: "YOU're the one who taught us about tongues!"

So true, young sparrow, so true.


I would estimate that 90% of the time, the kids call me "Mrs. M___." I know it's the kids who are really familiar with me who nail the Ms.

In other news, spring has finally sprung. Today I skipped the gym and opted to go for a nice leisurely jog/walk around my new neighborhood, which I love more every second I inhabit it. It felt nice to finally feel some sunshine on the face.

Oh, and of course I need to give a food update. Todd and I tried out Kuma's Corner on Saturday. It's a pub that is actually a ridiculously tiny hop and jump from my work place. They won an award recently for offering some of the city's best burgers, and it was well deserved. Kuma's has some notoriety for naming their burger options after heavy metal bands. I ordered the Motorhead, and it was delicious, topped with goat cheese, tzatiki, tomato and lettuce. There is also the Mastadon, the Black Sabbath, the Slayer, etc. And despite the glowering heavy metal names, the server was super friendly and the place was popping with a diverse selection of patrons. Plus, nice beer selection. I'm taking you all there when you come and visit me in Chicago.

Kuai Review in the Dallas Morning News!
I was a little late to the door on this, but I just found it. I was searching in the wrong place, apparently. I think it was pretty positive and good!

I've been quiet...so quiet.
No news is good news, right? It was rough getting back to work this past Monday but things are heating up quickly again.

There's old news to catch up on, though. I wanted to share that a couple of weeks ago, we went to go and see Explosions in the Sky play at the Metro. Charles had tried to turn me onto them many years ago (I even backed out of a trip to Baltimore to see them back in 2001 or something). It was only when I came to Chicago and Todd re-introduced me to them that I got hooked. I immediately fell in love with their gloriousness and used it as non-stop study music while in grad school. Needless to say, I was psyched to finally see them play live.

And how was it? They were awesome. I told Todd afterward that although it sounds cheese-ster, there is no other way to say it, but that their music makes my heart soar. Really, it does. There's lots of quiet beauty, and build up, and musical climaxes, and it's completely lovely.

But the concert experience was something else to speak of. It was an all-ages show, and it was packed to the gills. We opted to grab dinner during the opening band, so walked in an hour after the doors opened. I knew that it would be crowded, so was at peace with the fact that we were three layers back on the front balcony (I could peek through and catch sight of one of the band members below). I stood behind three single dudes who I surmised had been waiting there since the beginning, so they deserved their spots right by the rails.

Then I noticed this couple sidle up. It was a girl and her boyfriend, and they got there about half an hour after we got there. The girl did the crappy-but-noone-will-complain trick of ducking under dudes and pushing her way up front. In FRONT of these guys who had put in their time waiting for the best viewing. I was annoyed for them, but the dudes were stoic, so they didn't say anything and bore it with dignity. The girl would occasionally reach back for her boyfriend's hand and look swooningly at him, but he pretty much stayed back where I was. UNTIL, she pulled him up with her, pushing the stoic dude beside me even farther back so he was actually standing farther back than me. And THEN, they proceeded to make out very voraciously. In conclusion, it was gauche and gross, and bad concert etiquette.

Happy, Happy Birthday, Christie!

My favorite German/Costa Rican there ever was.

shiny-Dallas
Dallas was fun. Seeing Robin was great, and hanging out was even greater, and working at the restaurant all day on Monday and half the day on Tuesday wasn't so much great as it was educational and rewarding even (in terms of dumpling payment and spiritually too).

I must report that Kuai, the quick-food dumpling take out place put together by my very awesome brother and his two very awesome business school cadres, was nothing short of phenomenal. As I've told everything whom I've talked to about this, I would have lied to those guys and told them that the dumplings and food was great even if they weren't.

But they were really, really, really great. Plump and tasty and totally filled with quality and fresh ingredients.

So you want to hear about the menu? The dumplings include pork, chicken, and vegetable. They also offer three kinds of soups (hot and sour, egg drop, and won ton). Beyond that, there's also enormous and super fresh Viet garden rolls outfitted with two gargantuan shrimp and delicious, fresh chicken. There's also edamame, seafood salad, and ginger salad. Oh, and they sell boxes of Pocky, those little chocolate-dipped skinny cookie fingers that you see in Asian grocery store (unfortunately, Kuai does not offer Men's Pocky....yet.)

And nothing is fried, so it's super healthy. And cheap. A five-pack of dumplings is less than four bucks. You can get soup and a five-pack which will fill you up and under $6. I wish that they opened their first store near me (like, next door).

Oh, and the wonton soup? The guys make those wontons fresh too. I was thinking that they just bought frozen wontons, but they were just as freshly made as the dumplings. AND they have containers of fried shallots and another of chopped green onions for you to top your soups with.

So the dudes took advantage of my presence there at Kuai this week and worked me. I chopped an entire crate of tofu for the veggie dumplings. I helped peel half a crate of monstrous fingers of ginger (what a pain in the ass that was). I chopped mushrooms, celery, and onions. I helped pour sauces. I did a lot of industrial dish washing. I swept the floors. I helped lay out dumpling boxes. I took a phone order. I also watched them go through the painstaking process of making these dumplings. It was pretty sexy stuff, but all worth it since I got paid in food.

So, bottom line is that I'm really proud of them. And excited for what the future holds for delicious Kuai dumplings.

Beyond that, the rest of the visit was very laid back. The weather was flawless: sunny and in the 70s. On Sunday, I went to brunch with Robin and others where the restaurant offered bottomless bloody mary-s, bellinis, and mimosas for $3.50. BOTTOMLESS. $3.50. And now I see why there is so much drunk driving in Dallas because these people can drink a hell of a lot. The weather was also perfect enough to allow us to laze by the pool in the late afternoon (btw, weather in Chicago right now? Wind-warnings, overcast, and 30 degrees).

Dallas itself is full of shiny windows on its buildings. There is greenery and a lot of highway. Robin and I did exactly one touristy thing when we went to see the site of JFK's assassination. It took us like 15 minutes total to park, walk over, get a gander, snap a couple of shots, and then drive away. Someone marked the actual assassination spot with a medium-sized "x." I was surprised to see where it was since in all of the footage I pictured the spot being surrounded by buildings and a lot more flat. However, the place essentially appeared to be a highway exit. We had to take a few pictures of me pointing at the spot since cars kept on driving over the thing.

Although it was sad to bid Robin farewell, it's good to be home, to get back to my regular workout schedule, and continue tackling the slow unpacking of my place. The cable and Internet got installed today, and it's positively lovely to catch up on my Bravo shows and type here on my couch. I don't head back to work till Monday, so I have four more days free.

The kitchen:

where the magic happens, which includes all of the chopping.

And believe me, there is chopping.

A little taste of what is in the shelves. The vat is labeled "soy sauce."

Robin, Chris and Jeff posing at the counter of Kuai.

The outside of Robin's restaurant. Very professional, eh?

Mature.

A small piece of shiny-Dallas in the horizon, and Robin gazing upon it pensively. As you do.

The grassy knoll.
The barely seen "x" on the road.
A tiny gaggle of tourists across the street.

So lies the Dallas tourist experience.

On Spring break now!
I'm heading off to Dallas this afternoon to visit Robin and will be back next week.

wooo! I plan to eat a lot of dumplings.

All Moved In!
I'm in the new place, finally. It is great. I am currently Internet-less since my Internet doesn't transfer over till the beginning of April, but the good news is that the library is a block away and free wi-fi there! That's where I am right now.

So, the move. It was okay. Todd and Rich helped me, and Rich allowed us to use the Bear Claw van, which was very awesome of him. We moved the big stuff in about four hours and two van trips. The weather was brisk, but sunny, although a few snowy flakes came down. But, the worst planning aspect of it all was that I opted to move in St Patrick's Day. And my old place is in Party Central #2 and a couple of blocks away from Party Central #1. My little side street is usually busy, but people were skulking for spots and double parking as early as 9 a.m. that morning! Because people were getting their drink on at around 8. Fun!

The most hilarious thing was that I got residential moving posters from the alderman's office. They threaten towing in big red letters, but apparently, the only way to have any real towing pull is to get your signs put up by city hall. I decided that I wouldn't really get any car towed anyway, but might as well try to clear a spot for the van. So, I dutifully put up the signs two days beforehand and hoped that people would heed them and clear out on Saturday morning from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. No, they didn't. Not only did they flagrantly ignore the signs, but they were double parking. Lee's boyfriend walked by at 9 a.m., when someone was pulling in to the spot. Needless to say, finding a space for the van was a pain. We did manage to carve out one little corner, but had to pull forward and block a busy driveway whenever we loaded a piece of furniture.

But, the stuff is mostly in the new place now. I love the new place. It's strewn with books and papers at the moment, but slowly everything is being put away. It's light and cozy and my first night there was peaceful, although I'm getting used to the wheezing of the steam heaters. My toilet was running when I moved in and I called the maintenance guy last night. He fixed it today, so I'm pleased with the efficiency of it all.

I'm going to go home and cook dinner right now.

Moving blows.
Saturday is the big move! In the meantime, I've been loading up my car with odds and ends that I don't need help with in the hopes that Saturday's move will be made easier and easier. But, my room has magical abilities to hold large amounts of crap. I haul it out, and it regenerates. Now I'm hugely pooped and it's time for bed.

But, hey, it was 70 degrees in Chicago today! It was, as the newscasters described it, "the best weather in Chicago in 2007 so far." So true. It was sunny and breezy and outrageously lovely. But, tomorrow it's supposed to drop to 30 and there is talk of snow on Thursday.

Happy Birthday, Charles!

31.

We are definitely grown-ups now.

Touting
I found a new hair salon that I love. It's called Twisted Scissors. It is a block from Todd's place, so easy commute, and it's a start up by some renegade hair stylists that used to work at Roscoe Village's Big Hair. Big Hair is always packed and involves a wait, and their hours are short and strict (I think that they stop letting people in at 4). I liked it because it was funky and cheap. But they recently raised their prices. However, Twisted Scissors is funky, the stylists are super nice because they own the place and want regulars, it's roomy and light-filled and more laid back, and lots cheaper than Big Hair. I got a great cut and a blow dry for $20!

Run, don't walk, to Twisted Scissors. I have their number if you need it.

onBeing
Jenn Crandall, who was in Robin's class in Pakistan and who was in Beijing at the same time as me as well, is a photojournalist for Washingtonpost.com. She has started this onBeing project that is hands down great. Really, they're awesome and I'm proud to know their creator.

Check them out here!

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day!
Don't know who he is? I didn't either until this year. He's a Polish war hero who fought in the revolutionary war. It's a holiday here in Chicago, and all of the schools have it off. Ladies and gentlemen, that will make this my fourth Monday off since I started my job almost two months ago. I lerv the school schedule. A little about Pulaski for your edification from the website I've attached:

In 1779, Pulaski was ordered to join General Lincoln in the South to help recapture Savannah. After French General D'Estaing, leader in the attack on the southern capital, fell wounded, Pulaski is reported to have rushed forward to assume command and raise the soldiers' spirits by his example and courage, only to be mortally wounded himself. Pulaski was named the "Father of the American Cavalry", and remains one of the well known figures of the American Revolutionary War.

Are you dying to know what I've been doing with my day? Well, I began the slow move of my things over to my NEW PLACE. My great new place is in Lincoln Square and it's perfect and I love it. It makes packing shite into my car and carrying my millions of text books and papers everywhere a lot less painful.

Three day weekends are awesome. This weekend, I caught up with Northwestern ladies for some tapas at Cafe Iberico (my first time there--cheap tapas!), ventured to make some roast lamb with Todd, saw Russian Circles and Del Ray play at Schubas (thanks for the ticket, Todd), and had dim sum with Lauren at Furama in Uptown. I also showed Todd the new apartment and recruited his help to help me schlep up some bags of aforementioned text books that I had been slowly loading into my trunk.

I also had an adventure with selling things with Craigs list. This apartment came with a giant china cabinet that neither Lee nor I wanted to carry with us once we move out. I figured that I would sell it on Craigs list for some cheapie price and that was the right thing to do because I got like six or seven responses within six hours of posting. Since it was Jenny's old roommate who had left it with her, and she didn't want the cabinet, I'm taking the earnings and taking us out one night. We also have a giant blue rug that we need to get rid of and I'm going to try the same thing.

Congratulations...
to my little brother who got into his first choice school: UT-Austin. We doubted you a bit along the way because, while very smart, you also tended to be a bit lazy with the school work. But you proved us wrong, and I'm super excited for you. I also can't wait to come and visit Austin again.

Dumplings on the Run
Robin's new dumpling take out place, Kuai, is featured in D Magazine this month (D Magazine is the Dallas Magazine). The title of this blog post is the same as the name of their little feature. They took a pretty picture of the dumplings, and they also provided a nice background of the place. I booked tickets today to visit him at the end of March (during my spring break!), and I can't wait to stuff myself silly with pork and vegetable dumplings.

Note: you might have to actually go to the D Magazine web site and search for Kuai since I'm not sure if my own link will hold up.

Blech.
I think that I've decided that the red line is the g-damn drrrtiest el line. I can't speak for all of them (I have yet to ride the green or the pink), but the red line travels the length of Chicago, and it is always crowded and is smelly about 85% of the time. I'm usually not a germophobe, but I was feeling it today. I traveled via el back home after a work training which was in the Loop, and the train was full at like 3pm. What's up with that, first of all? Then I pincer grasped the super greezy hand rails. I guess that the extra grease does make them more shiny (silver lining!).

But, the best was when I watched a loud teenager sneeze into his hand, inspect what came out onto him palm, and then proceed to *smear it on the hand rail beside him*. Let me repeat, he smeared his snot on the hand rail beside him. The grody teenager was with a gaggle of his friends and when they exited the train, they were hooting and hollering. One of them approached the doors as they were closing and cursed out a hapless and impassive woman who was standing on the other side (e.g., "You bitch!" with motions to punch). It was ultimately harmless but really obnoxious. Some old dude who was most likely chemically imbalanced was sitting behind me, and very loudly announced "Thank GOD, those fucking morons are off the train." I was cranky from sitting in a training all day, so I seconded that thought in my head. You go on, chemically imbalanced man!

Happy Chinese New Year, Happy President's Day
I had today off for President's Day, so I was seriously productive. Cleaned out my bills, vacuumed, worked out, shoveled out my car (with a dustpan...must make do), cooked lunch for the rest of the week, and traveled to Northwestern for a three minute meeting. Now it's getting close to bed time, though, so hooray for that.

Yesterday, Chinese New Year, Todd and I met up with Clarence and Jonathan. We had Chicago style pizza for lunch and hopped on the el to Chinatown in hopes of catching the New Year parade. When we got off the train, we were wading through crowds heading back to the el so that was our first clue that we missed it. It was still good, though, since we got to watch the dragons and drummers visiting the stores along Archer and wandered in and out of shops. We ended up spending about an hour and a half relaxing over milk teas and fried tako balls at St. Alps tea shop. The evening ended with hanging out at Holiday Inn with Jonathan and Claro and watching lots of tv shows about autism.

Tomorrow, it's back to work. Gah.

Okay, now I see why people don't move to Chicago.
Or at least rent parking spaces.
This snow blows. Actually, it really blew a few days ago, and now it's melting a little and you can see the streets and the sidewalks again, but there's talk of more snow tonight. And boo to that! My car is still buried and I think it might stay like that for a while since even if I managed to dig it out, there is no spot to come back to because everyone else is leaving their cars nestled in their snow igloos as well. Ain't no way I'm digging it out again if it's going to snow again tonight!

Happy Belated Valentine's Day! The good news on Valentine's Day is that I think I found my new apartment/non-living Valentine. I am totally, wholly, absurdly smitten. It's a sweet, sunny, corner apartment in a lovely quiet building in Logan Square. The building is owned by a meditation group/new-agey place and they occupy the bottom floor (the woman who was showing me around told me, "Don't worry, we don't proselytize"). And besides being a nice size, it includes utilities plus recycling and has a shower with good water pressure (a must). It's about three or four blocks from the el, the same from Logan Square and its assorted restaurants, and has a grocery store and pharmacy within walking distance. All of the tenants have access to an expansive roof top deck complete with tables with umbrellas. It was $50 more than I was budgeting for, but on the bus ride home I scribbled out my monthly budget and calculated that I can work it, and after all of my monthly payments, I'll still have a little to put in savings. I called and accepted right away. Cross your fingers for me that I get it, otherwise it's back to the drawing board. I can't wait to have you over for a little home-cooked meal eaten on the deck when spring and summer roll around.

Unfortunately, though, since I chose to be carless this week, my Valentine's day commute included seven busses in total to get back and forth to everything and finally to Todd's place to cook up a Valentine's meal. Since the first bus took 40 minutes to arrive and the second bus took over 20 minutes to arrive, and my boots and socks were still cold and wet from all of my walking around, I was in an outrageously horrid mood by the time I arrived at his place. Sorry, Todd, because I know that I behaved horribly. He was a good boyfriend and provided the requisite sympathy and foot rubs for my suffering.

As Sarah reported on her blog, the school day was rife with Valentine's Day celebrations. I happened to have treatment time with two of my favorite second graders when they had their Valentine's Day party, so I opted to spend part of the session in their class so they wouldn't miss out. I totally made out like a bandit too, because all of their classmates gathered round, each presenting a single chocolate to me. That adds up to like 30 chocolate kisses and hearts. I even got my own personal bag to pack all of my goodies in. It's a bilingual classroom, and it fortified my intent to learn some Spanish because these kids...I want to put them all in my pocket.

The good news about this weekend is that Clarence and Jonathan are coming to town (I'm sure they're thrilled about the weather). And that Monday is another day off! I love working in schools.

Mmmm.

Dave and Sabrina, enjoying their flatbread.

Jenny and me.

Deep snow and chicken tibi
The snow has officially come down on Chicago. It's been snowing about about a day now and my little street is caked in snow. My car ain't going to be dug up anytime soon, so I'm bussing it every where. I'm lucky with my new commute, though, since it's hopping on and off one bus. However, the last few days I've been apartment hunting, and to keep up these appointments I have to transfer busses often. That is no fun. It would be much easier to have driven when the streets were still drivable. However, I've been watching countless cars spin their wheels, especially on the side streets.

I see on the news that there is a winter storm warning in effect. Hooray!

It's exhausting to even walk around. I walked over the gym today and as the wind buffeted my hood off my head I stopped several times to wonder what I was thinking.

But a bright spot in the snow is the start of the monthly supper club Jenny and I have started in order to explore new-to-us restaurants. Tonight we had our first gathering at the Ethiopian Diamond in Granville. It was my first time eating Ethiopian and I can say that I see what all of the fuss about. Yum. Four of us gathered there tonight. I took the bus up there with Dave and it ended up being a kind of crappy snow wonderland adventure.

About the aforementioned apartment hunting: it's been okay. I've seen a couple of places...one a total shithole in a good location and one a beautiful cozy and sunny nest in a safe, residential, but very unhappening neighborhood. I've got a couple more viewings scheduled for this week and I'm feeling hopeful. I may just go for the sweet, cozy nest in the unhappening neighborhood because let's be honest, I never go out to the bars in my neighborhoods. I do, however, love the ample selection of cafes and shops (and two grocery stores) within two blocks. Too many decisions.

Down Memory Lane
Anne lent me Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. I had read and heard a lot about it as a coming of age story of a bright girl feeling slightly out of place in a ritzy New England boarding school. It's swimming in accolades. I spent the last two nights huddled under the covers (brrr) gobbling it up and I'm about halfway through it. I like the writing and it's a good, laid back read. It also throws me into a major memory time warp of my own experience at a ritzy boarding school in New England. I flipped to the author's bio and check to see if she attended one, but there's no mention of it. She hits the target a lot of the time: discussing the fancy-dancy campus, the tiny classes, the assortment of the students, the casual privilege...even the names she gets right. I am impressed.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I attended such a school. My parents asked me afterward if it was a good experience, and I think that it was. The education was pretty incomparable. I also was plopped there in the Fall of 1990 when I was 13.5 years old and pretty stoopid. I didn't know what had hit me until the first evening there when I realized that my mom had pulled away and that was *it*. What the hell had happened. But I adjusted. I quickly realized that while I was well-traveled, I was not worldly in comparison to my classmates. Cigarettes, booze and boys: what are those? By the time I graduated, I was still pretty green compared to everyone else, but in my four years there I managed to make some good friends. I kind of wish that I had the opportunity to attend the school with the wherewithal that I have *now* because then I would really suck the marrow out of the chance to work with cool professors, attend every speaker that came to campus, and genuinely take advantage of the whole experience. Hindsight is 20/20, though.

After forcing myself to put down the book last night, I tossed around for a while thinking back on some of the sweeter memories. A few that I would like to share:

- My senior year I lucked out and managed to use the rooming lottery to score a seven-person house on campus with close friends. Rather than a rambling dorm, we had a little living room and a little kitchen and it was homey as hell. I somehow managed to secure the position of "house counselor" which meant basically nothing when you're in a tiny house with your friends, but I did get to put that on the old college applications.

-I loved, loved, loved our senior prom. See, since it was all high class, we didn't call it a prom, though. It was called the Last Hurrah (the winter formal was the First Hurrah). Seniors were the only ones allowed to attend and we were all required to take four weeks of ballroom dance lessons. My date was a tall, sweetly dorky crew dude named Dan who was my dancing partner during one of those lessons. We struggled through awkward reinditions of the foxtrot and the cha cha. I was not the grace monkey that I'm sure you all thought I would be. I didn't see the point of the dance lessons until the day of the dance. We walked into the candle lit, regally wooden dining hall and discovered that a big brass band that had driven in from New York had set up. They proceeded to rock our socks off. Dan and I danced the entire three hours. I only knew two basic steps, but it is hands down the best time I've ever had a dance.

-The campus was gorgeous. Des can attest to this since as it happens she spent her summers at the same school since her dad taught physics there to science scholars. Two buildings designed by I.M. Pei. The arts building was one of his, and it was walled with glass. Senior year I took a life drawing class there complete with a nude model. That was pretty great and I wish that I still had some of those charcoal drawings because, let's face it, the female body is pretty awesome to draw.

-One particular tradition I enjoyed was something called Garden Party that was held in the last week of school. During this, each senior girl invited one favored teacher and one favored junior girl to attend a tea party kind of thing that was held on one of the lawns. You exchanged bouquets with your invitees and dressed in your summer dress best. I took my favorite teacher (Mrs. Temple from calculus) and a sweet junior named Maeve who I did a community arts program with. It was lovely. (Maeve is a great name, now that I think about it, by the way).

-The spring of my senior year several of my friends in my house went off for a two-month long exchange to a Navajo reservation (See? If I were smart, I would have done that too). I was able to form some friendships with the Navajo students who came over, lived in the house I was in, and were in class with me. They invited me and a couple of others over to a feast of traditional Navajo food in our dorm advisor's house and then we all watched "The X-Files. " Navajo flat bread: you had me at hello. During that time, someone from the New York Times did an article about the exchange. Through one of my extracurriculars, they hooked the reporter up to me to represent the boarding school voice since my peers were off on their exchange. My dad was overseas when one of his colleagues showed the article to him with a "Isn't this your kid?" I sounded like an asshole and the article was on the front page (slow news day, I guess). But another lesson learned.

-My all time favorite adviser was a young English teacher named Ms. P from my junior year. She lived in a absurdly small apartment on my dorm floor and allowed some of us to watch SNL on her mini TV on her kitchen counter on Saturday nights. One night she drove four of us to New Haven to eat delicious veggie food at Claire's and then go and see the Nutcracker. Ms. P probably was younger than I am now, and I still have a warm place in my heart for her. Since she was new she didn't develop the crustiness that more seasoned boarding school teachers held. At one point she was going running with two other youngish teachers on campus and left a couple of us in her apartment to watch skating on her TV. I still remember the looks those other teachers had ("what the hell are you having these students in your place for?"). But I still love her for trusting us and letting us share a little piece of *someone's* home on a Sunday morning. I think she might have been a little lonesome being young and far away from her family, but that lonesomeness allowed her some openness to connect. I believe that if we were the same age we would have had a grand friendship.

Okay, that is a lot of pontificating for one post. But it's all to say that despite the struggles of high school, I emerged with an overall positive experience. And that Prep is good.

DIZZAMN!
It's cold here. It's supposed to drop into the single digits this weekend, which means that I am totally going to be inside and cozy constantly.

Superbowl fever is officially here! Not that I really know anything about it. But, Chicago Public Schools is officially asking students and staff to wear Bears gear tomorrow in support of the team. This slays me. Did you all picture me rushing to the corner store to buy a jersey? I know that you did. I'm just going to have to dig up something blue and orange and call it a day. I ran across a bulletin board of little poems that some of the younger students wrote for the Bears and they were priceless. I was tempted to copy some of them down for your enjoyment, but better to respect their art and leave them be.

Sneezy
I'm sneezing like crazy tonight. Let's hope that it's not a cold coming to settle in. It's freezing in Chicago, and it snowed on and off during the weekend. My car is completely covered in salt; it's kind of gross. I'm leery of getting a car wash, though, since it seems like every two days the salt trucks go to town on the roads. Eff it.

In other news, Todd and I went to the Empty Bottle on Saturday night for a benefit show for a musician whose baby has a rare genetic disease. For a good cause and all of that. In addition to the five bands playing, they also had a raffle. A lot of the prizes were pretty good (for instance, VIP passes to next year's Pitchfork Festival). The grand prize, though, was a home visit from SNL's Fred Armisen who would "come to your house to entertain you." Apparently, Armisen used to play in Chicago bands and is friends with the musician in question. The person who won? Armisen's ex-wife. Needless to say, she didn't want it. So she suggested that they auction the prize off in the interest of earning more money. At first, the audience was kind of weirded out by the aspect of the prize, so noone was bidding and it hung at $20 for a little while. Eventually, people got warmed up, and it eventually went for $300 to the owner of the Empty Bottle.

Todd and I were chuckling over how awkward that prize might be. So he would come to your house and then do what exactly? But then we figured that it would be worth it to spend $40 to have him come over and help you move or clean or something. How awesome would that be to have Fred Armisen help you move your crap? And it would be cheaper than hiring movers!

Bears Fever!
Chicago is nutty with the Bears right now. One of the first grade teachers had her kids color pictures of football players (in Bears colors, of course) and posted them outside the classroom. The local morning news is about 76% Bears coverage. I want to see if it would keep up for these next two weeks leading up to the Super bowl.

I hung out yesterday and watched the Bears game with Todd and Rich. It wasn't an unpleasant experience since I napped a little here and there and read my book most of the time.

Beyond that, it's cold as hell here! It snowed a little this weekend and left gray slushiness. The weather makes me want to curl up and go to sleep early. I think that's exactly what I will do tonight.

Before I forget:

This silkscreen print (framed and matted) is the perfectly awesome Christmas gift Todd got for me from my favorite poster/print makers, The Bird Machine. I love the art by the artist, Jay Ryan. They do a lot of concert posters, but I recently noticed that the cover of the new Michael Chabon book is done by them as wel;. Todd had picked it out from the web site, but he was first told that they were out. Luckily, someone dug a hidden one up when Todd re-mentioned it when he went over to the Bird Machine's silkscreening place (whatever you call it).

He told me that a conversation occurred with one of the people there that went as follows:

Todd: My girlfriend loves fat, furry animals.
Guy at Bird Machine: You came to the right place.







I bought another poster from them, another sleeping animal, a bear this time (to the right).

I think I need to start collecting a series of Jay Ryan's fat, sleeping animals.

How it Began
To briefly catch up, I completed my first two days of my job. I got extremely lucky and have the exiting SLP around for about three weeks so I can ease my transition. It helps to take my time meeting the kids, meeting the staff, and learning about the paperwork. Otherwise it would be a lot more frenzied, and a lot more stressful. I was a bit worried to try a new school since my school placement was so ideal, mostly because the kids were perfect angels. I'm happy to report that the kids who I've met so far at my new school are equally angelic. Plus, the SLP is leaving behind tons of materials, a beautiful therapy room (with an enormous picture window), and lots of organization. So far, so good. Plus, I got paid for today, a school holiday! It's a nice contrast to my other placements where I sometimes SLAVED, and paid a lot (both monetarily and spiritually) for the experience.

Plus, my commute is awesome. It takes me about 15 minutes door to door to get home, so I've been getting home by around 3-3:15. I know once the SLP is gone I'll probably stick around longer to get work done, but I'll still be home before 5, most likely.

In other news, I ended my week last week by taking my geology midterm. Brutal. It took me 2.5 hours and by the end I was ready to chuck it since my hands were hurting from writing. 15 definitions and 10 non-negotiable essays. But, that marks my half-way point of the course, and I bled along the way.

But this weekend was a good time. Todd and I went to see Mission of Burma and Pinebender perform at the Double Door. It was a great show, partly because the crowd was so varied (there were a lot of people who were in their 50s). Mission of Burma played two high-energy sets, and the show was still over by midnight. My kind of show. Unfortunately, the cigarette smoke at the show kicked Todd's burgeoning cold into high gear. He was out of commission all weekend, poor dude. He was mildly cheered by the Bears win on Sunday, but had to miss Indian buffet last night.

Laura, Megan, Katie and I went to Devon (Indian-town of Chicago, complete with grocery stores specializing in dried spices and gleaming department stores chock full of glamourous saris and fabric) and partook in a sumptuous buffet. It was such a deal! Besides the buffet, they brought hot buttered naan to the table and sizzling platters of chicken tandoori. All for $9.95. One of my new favorite places in Chicago.

So the week begins again tomorrow. I'm plowing through the last week of my intensive education course for teacher's certifcation, but I can put geology aside for a little bit. I've been running around today running errands: getting a much needed haircut, hassling NU's registrar to fill out paperwork for liscensure, grocery shopping, and working out. Now I'm pooped and am contemplating changing my sheets and changing in my pajamas. Chicago got some snow today and it's starting to stick, so I may take the bus to work tomorrow.

The New Year.

I decided to start out the series of New Years picture with the New Years bread pig that Grace got for my family.

How awesome is it?

Anyway, we rang in the New Year at Matt's beautiful condo. Robin stayed for New Years, and it was a super fun time. It's kind of ridiculous that I have no pictures of our host, but I'll just get them next time. The party was fun, not too crazy, full of delicious food and drinks and full of people who I love.

And it didn't cost over $50 at the door. ;)

Todd's friends, Matt and Sharon, were in DC for the New Years.

Christie and Stefan.

Christie, Anne, and myself.

Anne was such a rock start since she *worked* that day. Had woken up at like 4:30 to work.
Unbelievable.

New Years fun.

30th Birthdays.
This is wildly overdue, but I wanted to document the wee get-t0gether that Jonathan, Clarence, and I had for our 30ths. Clarence turned 30 in November, I did in December, and Jonathan will turn next month. Super good, laid back time! I also got a chance to see folks like James and Nathalie who I might not have otherwise seen.

Des, Bryan, and myself. I am sandwiched by love.

Here is one of my favorite pictures.

Grace was shocked that I liked the last Rocky movie enough to cry at the end. She didn't believe it at first. Then we decided to act out the moment of scorn/disbelief at me sobbing like a baby at a hokey movie.

Gracie and me. When we're not showing our awesome acting skills.

Finally reunited.
I think it was about two years since I had seen Christie!
(We should have gotten Madeline in this one as well).

The birthday kids. part II.

Birthday kids I.

The beautiful cake that Jonathan acquired for the birthday festivities.

The Perfect Storm.
I'm not dead! I assure you, I am alive!
This week has been crazy because of a combination of three things:
1. ) I started my job. About that, my first day was today and I liked it very much. I feel heartened with the assurance that I made the right decision. Plus: money!
2.) I'm in the midst of an intensive three-week course to complete my teachers certification. Much online participation is required along with regular papers. It sucks. But I'm almost half way through at this point.
3.) I'm taking my geology midterm on Friday (my other dreaded online course). It's so much information, I feel totally and seriously screwed.

Once things settle down (this is a long weekend) I'll write more, and try to get down to downloading all of those photos from the break. So you have that to look forward to. Don't lose heart.