Sunday, July 22, 2012

Change-Up

This weekend was a big one. I finished the last day of Teach For America's Institute, said goodbye to my wonderful TFA friends, moved into a new apartment, met my new roommates, and will continue on as a real-life adult tomorrow in my real-life professional development session at my school. (I feel like I say "real-life" a lot when referring to my teaching and post-grad life...I think I do this because while all of those things are very real, I don't usually feel like a "real-life" adult.) Maybe I'll write more reflectively on the past little segment of my life in a day or so, but for now I'll let you know the cool things that went down in the past few days.


On Friday night my cousin Craig (who has a very high cool factor) invited me to go see his friend's band at the House of Blues. I grabbed Zach, my co-teacher who loves concerts, and rode up the Green Line to meet Craig and his friends (as well as unexpectedly run into one of my absolute favorite human beings, Lauren Sandberg! Ah!). 

Okay now a word about Zach. This kid has expressed how he feels snubbed for not being mentioned by name in the blog so far, so here goes: Zach was my better half in room 309 as the fellow Reading and Writing teacher and probably saved my life a million times by telling me to stop worrying, finding my lesson plans for me that I misplaced, and telling me that the lesson didn't go THAT badly when it definitely DID GO THAT BADLY. He's a Bostonian, so I like to repeat things in his R-omitting-accent (pahk the cah instead of park the car) while he often makes me repeat my Wisconsin-style pronunciation of "bag." One commonality that made me really excited: He also calls it a bubbler when you other people would refer to it as a drinking fountain. He is in the Milwaukee corps for TFA, so I don't have to say goodbye permanently, I just am super bummed that my partner in crime won't be there for me to make fun of and pester in Chicago all the time. But remember how I'm not getting too upset with saying goodbyes anymore? I'm an adult and I'm sucking it up. (Not really, but I want to sound confident so that's my story for now.) 


We saw the band Mike Golden & Friends headline at the House of Blues and it was AMAZING. They have such a cool vibe to their show (you can download their new album here!) and convinced me of their rockstardom in just a short hour and a half. It was a fabulous night to be in the city. Then reality hit. The next morning I opened my dorm door at IIT and saw this:


Yep. Move-out day. It sucks. Not only are you sad to leave your friends and awesome fun memories behind, you have to sweat like a beast and haul crap around in this sad nostalgic state. But then, all of a sudden, after 14 trips up and down four flights of stairs carrying everything I hold dear, Move-out day turned into Move-in day! Wouldya look at that?  See how that worked out to be an okay day after all? Nice. Here's a sneak preview of my apartment in Pilsen. It's a beaut. I'm just learning about how cool and authentic the neighborhood is as I'm hearing more about it and seeing it for myself. My roommates are two happy and fun girls, so I am really thankful for this living set-up. I'm still a little iffy on how I feel about being on my own in the real-life adult world (there I go again), but it's going to be a fun adventure to figure it all out. Look at me, a Chicago resident!

Not only did all those things happen this weekend, but another HUGE event in my life occurred. I discovered Cookie Butter. It might rank up there with starting a new job and moving into a new apartment on the gravity of impact that it's made on my life. I know there are others out there who have been on this train and I'm just hitching on now, but I have to say that it is the most delicious bandwagon I've jumped on since the joint Pizza Hut-Taco Bell drive-thru craze hit Sheboygan County in 2006. This stuff is amazing. It's hard for me to remember to spread it on other foods instead of just eat it by the spoonful on its own. I'm telling you, give it a shot. Right now. You won't be disappointed. I'll be spending tonight eating this, getting ready for bed, and falling asleep in a brand-new-to-me place. Real-life tastes good. 


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