Day 93

Happy 1: I made a little man with Wikki Stix. While I was home for Thanksgiving, my roommates stayed in Chicago and went to the Festival of Lights. They got fun stuff like Wikki Stix - "the twistable, stickable, buildable, playable one-of-a-kind creatables! No glue, no stains, no mess." Lucky for me, my roommates shared and I created a little orange stick man. Be impressed. He even stands up all by himself. The girls also showed me these amazing 3D glasses that turn distant lights into reindeer. How cool is that?

Happy 2: It was chilly today. I even pulled out my mittens. Winter is finally on it's way! People in the city are such wimps; they've been bundled up for weeks.

Crappy: Long, long day at work. One of those days that never ends. Thank goodness for Pandora and the golden oldies station.

Day 92

Happy 1: Commedia Beauregard Presents: A Klingon Christmas Carol. Star Trek, anyone? Tickets are normally thirty-some dollars but tonight admission was only three canned goods. I can afford that. The whole play was in Klingon with English superscripts on a PowerPoint. It was pretty epic. I don't know anything about Star Trek but before the play started my roommate, who used to be quite a Star Trekian, gave me a quick course on Klingon 101; the history, the language, all the ins and outs. This was definitely an interesting, once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Happy 2: It was wonderful to have a week-long break from work, but it was nice to go back to my routine. The Monday morning meetings, the morning greetings: "Good morning, So-and-so." "Good morning." How are you?" "Good. How are you?" "Good.", the sports talk, the boat load of work emails to read and delete. Welcome back!

Crappy: Remember my Fine Art Final Project, sounds of the city? I carried a video camera with me everyday for a long time and all I wanted was to record my favorite boy band. Of course, the one day I didn't have it on me, they were in the train station. And there was a sweet flute player performing cheery Christmas songs. Rats! Maybe I'll catch them tomorrow.

Day 83 - Day 91

Saturday, November 20 through Sunday, November 28

Where to begin? Here's the highlights.

MegaBus to Des Moines, picked up by parents, went to brother and sister-in-law's house, babysat my nephew, attended my parents' sixth grade Sunday School class, visited my old babysitter (she's practically my grandma), made Christmas candy with my grandma and my cousin, saw Harry Potter 7: Part I, got my passport (which cost a fortune), stopped by my hometown Fareway and chatted it up with the full-time ladies, Thanksgiving on both sides of the family, ate lots of yummy food, more candy making with my relatives, did some homework, hung out with my brother and his wife and their little one, church, Des Moines, MegaBus to Chicago, city bus to apartment, home.

Whew! What a vacation!

Day 82

Happy 1: I went out to lunch with my supervisor and another employee, Igor (yes, that's his real name). We waited twenty minutes to get into the restaurant, Sidebar Grille, but it was worth the wait. The food was excellent and expensive. Good thing the company paid for the meal.

Happy 2: At work, while listening to Christmas music on Pandora, the song Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas came on. I only had one ear bud in so I could hear what was going on in the office. At the very end of the song there are two final notes and someone clicked their mouse in time with the music. The sheer coincidence of this happening made me nearly burst out laughing. I don't know how it worked out so perfectly, but it did and it was fantastic.

Crappy: I hate packing. That is what I did tonight. Packed. However, it is for a very good reason. Tomorrow morning I am heading home for Thanksgiving Break. Most everyone else in the Chicago Semester program doesn't get to leave until Wednesday. But I switched some things around and get to have seven days at home with a half-day of travel on both ends. While I am so excited to go home and see family and relax, I am missing a lot of the festivities in Chicago. Parades and concerts and tree-lighting ceremonies. So, slightly mixed feelings: don't like packing, love the idea of going home, don't like six hours of travel time on a bus, love to be with family, don't like to miss stuff in Chicago, love to do fun stuff during Thanksgiving.

As I will be home relaxing and spending time with family and friends, I will be much too busy to post daily entries. Plus, I really want a break. It's tough to write this every day. Do you realize I've done this eighty-two times? So, don't be alarmed, I am alive and well. And I hope you are, too. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Day 81

Happy 1: Hot apple cider. What a nice surprise when I walked into my office building today. The building staff provided hot chocolate and apple cider for people like me that work in the offices. I chose apple cider and it was delicious.

Happy 2: More Art Project Footage. On my walk to work I filmed the clock tower playing a tune and then chiming the hour. Then on my way home I filmed a lady playing the guitar and singing some good oldies songs. I also recorded the sound of the train coming into the station, the voice from above that announces the next stop, and the general noisiness of my daily commute. It is all coming together.

Happy 3: Peter Pan! The very last Fine Art event. So sad. But what a note to go out on! The play at Lookingglass Theatre was amazing. Words can't describe it but I will try. Take Disney's Peter Pan, Hook, Finding Neverland, and mash them all together. The set was nothing like I expected; it was industrial and cold. It forced us to use our imaginations to fill in the rest. The audience was seated on three sides of the "stage," which was really just a cement floor, so we were on equal footing. The cast came in and amongst us, and I was very close to some of them because I sat at the end of the row. The pirates were scary cannibals; clowns, creepy doctors, and a woman with Freddie Krueger-like fingers. Peter Pan, Wendy, John, and Michael actually flew. They wore harnesses the whole time and swung around on ropes, right above our heads. A really fun part happened at the beginning as we were all waiting for the show to start. There were light bulbs above our heads, but they weren't turned on. The cast came out, acting like little children, and wordlessly encouraged certain people to pull the string to turn them on. A lady came up to a friend of mine and wanted her to pull the string. She couldn't reach, so a CS girl sitting behind her pulled the string. Well, this was not what the lady wanted. She scowled at the girl, turned the light back off, and encouraged my friend to do it. She had to stand on a chair, but she got the job done. The story, the characters, the atmosphere, the imagination of it all brought me back to the simple days of childhood. At one point they drew pictures with chalk and I so wanted to get down on the floor and draw too. Super fantastic, out of this world, words can't describe, leave you wanting more, type of play. This was perhaps my favorite art event of the semester, which is saying something.

Crappy: Messed up at work...again. My supervisor came over to my desk and explained something really hurriedly, which is unusual. Come to find out, he had a meeting right then. I got to work selecting certain account numbers and making pdfs. When he got out of his meeting he came over to show me the next step. Apparently, I had made all of them incorrectly because I chose "Internal Review" as opposed to "Client Deliverable." I'm almost positive we didn't talk about that. No matter, I deleted everything I had done and redid all twenty-eight pdfs, printed them off, and paired them with the appropriate manila file folder.

Day 80

Happy 1: Acting Exercises. My Fine Arts class is attending the very last event of the semester tomorrow evening (sad face); Lookingglass Theatre is performing Peter Pan. It should be pretty fantastic. You really can't go wrong when it comes to Peter Pan and Neverland. One of the founders spoke to the class today about the theatre company and the play. As an actor, he was quite animated and definitely not boring. Much to our surprise, he made us do a series of acting exercises. The Hey Game - stand in a circle, one person runs across the circle to another person, jumps up, says "Hey!" and gives that person a two-handed high five, then the person that was approached runs to another person, eventually five different lines are going and it is utter madness. Freeze Frame - get in a group of five people (that I didn't know very well), given a word, silently make a scene representing that word in four seconds, then freeze. Sculpting - sculpt a partner (in my case a boy) into a form that represented a given word. My word was "perfect" so I had him hold a halo above his head and look angelic. Numbers and Sounds - with the same partner, turn and face each other, count to three  (I say one, you say two, I say three, you say one, I say two, you say three, you get the idea), but then we had to make up sounds and actions to take the place of each number. We were selected to do ours in front of the class (Doink, Plop, Holla!); numbers one and three were my creation. These were actually really good exercises for me. It helped me to loosen up a bit and not take myself so seriously.

Happy 2: Accordion Mike. In between classes I went downtown and came across Michael, the accordion player. Of course, I saw this as a prime opportunity for my Final Art Project. I stopped and asked him a few questions (he was not very talkative) and filmed him playing a song. When I bent down to place my donation (for his time and cooperation) in his accordion case, he grabbed it out of my hand and stuffed it in his pocket. Well, okay then.

Crappy: Lousy Neighborhood Presentation. My Practicum group gave our Hyde Park presentation today. The people in my group were very hard to work with because they all have strong personalities. I absolutely despise group projects. Rather than have someone else in the group do a crappy job, I generally take the leadership position. This time, however, I just threw up my hands and let them do what they were going to do. When we met on Monday to make a poster and put the final touches on the presentation, I had a good feeling about things. But when we gave the presentation today (which we gave four times because every group rotated rooms), they just read off boring facts and figures about their topics. Lame. I talked about religion in Hyde Park and had a good time with it. (I took Public Speaking last year and discovered that I kind of have a knack for it.) The people in my group were competent speakers but they did a lousy job picking out and presenting their material. And they didn't tie things together like I thought they would. Whatever, it's over and done. But this is why I lead group projects.

Day 79

Happy 1: Grocery Shopping. Made grocery list, took the Red Line to Aldi, shopped, paid, sacked groceries (thank goodness I worked at Fareway), took Red Line back to apartment, made a pit stop at CVS, unloaded groceries, ate some of the new goodies. Done. One hour. Be impressed.

Happy 2: I may have made a new friend at work today. Who? The infamous receptionist. She was alphabetizing the file drawers located right next to my overly-large desk. I told her she could use my desk space if she needed somewhere to put things. She said, "That's okay, but thanks." Whatever, I tried. But then...she started to put piles of files on my desk. Later in the day I walked by her desk, smiled warmly, and she returned it. Can you believe it?! I had no idea it would all come down to sharing my desk. This is definitely progress.

Happy 3: More Window Washers. They scaled the building again today, this time on a different side. I was talking to the part-time gal that sits next to me when we heard the familiar sound of suctions on the window. We looked over and saw the dangling window washer. We were intrigued, so we watched for a little bit, but they're really quick. On his way down the rope to the next floor he caught us watching and flashed us a toothy grin. I'm sure they see some pretty interesting people in a day's work.

Happy 4: We're sitting here, me and my roommates, listening to a Relient K Christmas song; "Sleigh Ride," to be exact. I'm typing on the computer, bobbing my head. I look over and see Kristin and Rachel bobbing their heads too. The fact that we're each in our own little world, jamming out, is comical. Who doesn't love punk rock Christmas music?

Crappy: Problems with Zephyr. My task was to take numbers from four different Excel worksheets and type them into another program, Zephyr, for analysis. Easy enough. Well, there were complications. There are always complications. I had finished one of the lists and clicked "OK." A window popped up that said, "File such and such already exists. Do you want to overwrite it?" The only two options were "Yes" and "No." Of course I clicked "No." That was the wrong thing to do. It closed the window and took all my hard work with it. Trying to solve the problem by myself, I retyped the numbers. Again, the window popped up. Not wanting to redo the list a third time, I went to my supervisor for help. I found out that it was not my fault. The file name that he had me type in at the beginning of the project was causing the problems. We fixed it and away I went. Why does stuff like this always happen to me? Because I'm a Tammen, that's why. We wouldn't want anything to be too easy. What fun is that?

Day 78

Happy 1: Whistling Window Washers. This morning at the office, I heard a thump and when I looked out the blind-covered window, I saw a shadow. The rest of the office and I thought it was a huge bird hitting the window, which is a fair assumption since we're on the thirty-seventh floor. I'm glad it wasn't a bird because it would have had quite a large headache. However, it was some window washers. They were just wandering around on the plank like it was no big deal. I was impressed with their window washing and thirty-seventh- floor balancing talent. One of my co-workers said, "This is why I went to school."

Happy 2: I started my final fine art project today, due at the end of the semester. My vision is to take footage of street/subway performers, get a little background information, and put it all together. If all goes as planned, it should be pretty sweet. While waiting half an hour for the train after work (it was way busier than normal due to a power outage somewhere in the city) I talked to the musicians serenading the masses. Two guys: David on mandolin and kazoo,and Sam on guitar. I filmed them playing a classic song by Johnny Cash. They gave me a card with their contact information; depending how good the project turns out I may send them the file for their amusement. Later in the evening I was out and about again and came across three black guys rapping: Big Boy, One of the Greatest, and Rhythm (playing a box drum).

Crappy: A girl got sick on the train right as we pulled into the station this morning . The train was packed but people managed to make more room when the poor girl was clearly not feeling well. Thankfully, I was right next to the door and exited quickly. I heard some people say, "You've got to be (insert explicit) kidding me!" I take it they weren't too happy. In other train activity, someone was hit and seriously injured by the Red Line. Honestly, I'm surprised stuff like this doesn't happen more often.

Day 77

Happy 1: Sprinkles Cupcakes. My roommates follow Sprinkles on Twitter. The business tweets things like: The first twenty-five people to whisper "sweet and salty" at the counter get a free Salted Caramel Cupcake. These girls like cupcakes, so we got the tweet and sped-walked seven or eight blocks to the store, whispered the magic phrase, and got a free cupcake. It was scrumptious.

Happy 2: Two Skype dates in one day. How lucky can a girl get? Talking to people at home really boosts my spirit. Especially when it's my college roomie, my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and of course the cutest little boy in the whole wide world, my nephew.

Crappy: Sunday sermon. My roommate and I attended First St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church. I was pretty excited because it was Lutheran; we've been going to mostly non-denom churches. The pastor preached on money, but did it very, very poorly. He told the congregation that he and his wife give ten percent right of the top, not the leftovers like many people do. Apparently, this church just lost a pastor and many people left because of it. He said that pastors come and go but congregations and buildings remain. Really? Last I checked, people move away and ultimately die, and buildings can burn down or be wiped out by a tornado. This guy talked very little about God. Not okay. However, attending a wide variety of churches has given me an insight into my worship style preferences and shown me that the most important thing about a church is that it teaches and preaches the Word of God. Not the Word according to Man.

Day 76

Happy 1: Rachel and I went on a tour of Evanston. We spent the first hour traveling North to the end of the Red Line, transferring, and riding to the end of the Purple Line. Once we got there it started misting, but we were smart enough to bring an umbrella along. The highlight of the trip was the Baha'i House of Worship. It's kind of a new-age universal religion. That's not great, but the temple was beautiful, inside and out. We went inside and looked up at the dome; the way the light filtered through it looked like a star-strewn sky. Outside, there were gardens and fountains for reflection. Apparently there was an Iowa game in the area. It was a little taste of home seeing the Hawkeye symbol and a sea of black and gold, but we came upon many a drunken college students. At the end of the tour we had a late lunch at Mrs. D's Diner. French toast and hash browns. Relatively cheap and incredibly delicious.

Happy 2: I made supper tonight. Chicken, macaroni and cheese, broccoli, and carrots. All in one. Be impressed.

Crappy: Rain = Cold and Wet. Rachel and I got soaked on our tour of Evanston. Even though we had an umbrella, our pants were wet up to the knee and our shoes sloshed with water. During our soggy adventure we may or may not have whipped out a rendition of Singin' in the Rain. When we finally made it back to the apartment we changed into dry clothes and made steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

Day 75

Happy 1: The flip books are done forever! I went to the Post Office which was actually open today. The teller wasn't very friendly, but I think I won her over with my cheery disposition. Went back to work, printed labels using the postage meter, stuck the postage stickers on the boxes, took the boxes to the drop-off spot on the first floor of the office building. Done. Forever. At least for me. Apparently they do this much work every quarter. Glad I won't be here for the next time around.

Happy 2: Funny story. So, it's my niece's first birthday today. (Happy Birthday, Baby G!) Pretty big deal. I sent her a present in the mail but I wanted to send her an email message too. I composed this cutsie note and was pleased with my wittiness. I typed my brother's name in the address bar and clicked send. By the grace of God I checked my sent folder to make sure it went through. Much to my surprise, instead of going to my brother it went to a NWC student with the same first name. Needless to say, I was horrified. I immediately emailed the guy and apologized. To be fair, I told him he could pretend it was his birthday too, if he wanted. Later in the day he emailed back: "Hahahahaha! I hope you are laughing at yourself cuz you made me laugh. Thanks!"

Crappy: After a month of inactivity, I got to write an article for the weekly financial market update. I wrote the economics section, which is my favorite. In the past the editor has made very minor adjustments. However, I was a little rusty and there were a few items that needed rewording or further clarification. She's super nice so it didn't hurt my pride too much. This just goes to show I need some more practice.

Day 74

Happy 1: Day of firsts. (1) My first out-of-the-office adventure. Remember those Flip Books? The last step is to mail them to the clients. However, they go all over the country so it makes postage a hassle. My supervisor told me to go to the Post Office, take the three boxes going furthest away and record the prices. Post Offices in Chicago are hard to find. I asked where it was and he said it was in the Thompson Building. I thought it had to be a big enough place that I could find it with no trouble. Wrong. I had to ask a lady on the street for help. Once I found the right place I attempted to use the revolving door but it wouldn't budge. The hours posted showed that it should be open. After standing there for a while it occurred to me that it was Veteran's Day. Dork stamp. (That was an accidental pun. Funny.) (2) My first office phone call. I was working on a project and my supervisor told me to call one of the part-time lady's o get some information. Sadly, I needed help figuring out how to dial outside the office. Don't judge, there's lots of buttons. The lady called me back and the receptionist (my super good friend, the receptionist) called me and transferred the call. I felt really important. (3) My supervisor reviewed one of my projects, more tedious formatting in Excel, and he told me it was excellent. That has to be the highest praise I've received so far. (4) My Practicum group ventured to Hyde Park for a neighborhood visit. We met with the pastor of Hyde Park Union Church. When we first got there the church doors were locked,  but there was an intercom and some buttons. Our leader wasn't there yet but our appointment time was looming so I plucked up the courage, pushed the button, and talked to someone in the office, who then buzzed us in. No big deal.

Happy 2: River North Dance Company. The Fine Art event tonight was classical dance, kind of like ballet. It was pretty enjoyable. The thirteen dancers were so talented; graceful and weightless. I'm glad it was only an hour long show; it was hard to focus during the large group dances because there was so much going on. My favorite performance was probably the solo dance that was accompanied by a sweet drum cadence. The performers are talented, dedicated, and ridiculously muscular. Overall, it was a good show. It inspired me to get buff and take dance classes just for fun. Yeah right.

Crappy: Kicked in the knee. After the Fine Art event we were waiting at a crosswalk. A cute little boy was standing in front of us, holding his mom's hand. He was probably three years old and bursting with energy, which came out in fits of giggles and lots of jumping. I was standing directly behind the tyke and he totally kicked me in the knee cap. It really hurt. Those light-up shoes did some damage; my pants got dirty and my knee hurt for two blocks. Geesh, kids these days. It's okay, I still like him. He's too cute to be mad at.

Day 73

Happy 1: My Metro class toured Bronzeville and learned about the history of the neighborhood. The teacher riding along to provide commentary had us stop at her favorite art gallery called Gallery Guichard. Normally, I don't particularly like modern art but this place was great. It was located in a three-story townhouse with a real homey feel and the art was incredible. My classmates flew through the gallery but I could have stayed for hours, which is saying something about the quality of the artwork. I love field trips.

Happy 2: Chicago Semester provided a free community dinner for all of the students. I expected pizza but we were served Pockets. What's a Pocket, you ask? According to the official website, "A pocket is a freshly-baked, multi-grain bread pulled right out of the oven, split open and stuffed with your choice of finely chopped greens, vegetables, cheeses and meats. Served with your favorite dressing on the side." We also had cookies and dessert bread with Nutella. So good. After a delicious supper, I attended an hour-long job workshop led by two CS staff members. They did a good job answering questions and I learned a lot.

Crappy: Class days are very long and tiring. It was not helped by the fact that I stayed up until 2am last night. Not a smart move on my part. Who needs to do homework, really?

Day 72

Tuesday, October 9
(It's after midnight, what can you do?)

Happy 1: The Flip Books. Today I spent a strong four hours on this project. Pick up forty-three page stack, put front cover on top, back cover on top of that, cut binding to size, put binding on, place booklet in binding machine, pull handle down, take out and inspect to make sure the binding is completely round and sufficiently closed, flip back cover over, leaf through book to make sure pages can flip freely, place on stack, repeat. I was nearly finished when I realized there weren't enough front covers. Uh oh. The only explanation is that there were duplicates on the ones already bound. So, I went through them and found eight that had two covers on them. Give me a break, they're clear plastic. I had to take the binding off, which was no easy task but I succeeded. Finished binding all eight books and thought I would take a break. I was wrong. Now I have to box them up. Okay, stick them in a big box and I'm done. Wrong again. Each book has to be placed in its own little box. Sigh. The process starts again. Take cardboard and fold along the correct parts to get the right size box, place one booklet inside, fold in the flaps, take packaging tape and securely and neatly close the box, place on stack, repeat. I got fifty boxes folded, filled, taped, and stacked, but time ran out before I could finish. Shucks. This is a happy because I thought my internship would be like this every day and it thankfully has not been. And it has given me a new appreciation for the work people do behind-the-scenes, without credit.

Happy 2: I was listening to my Golden Oldies station on Pandora and I caught myself singing all the lyrics to a song that came. I didn't know I knew it: Downtown. Join me as I take a stroll down memory lane. It's seventh grade mixed choir. We're singing an oldies medley; Downtown, Leaving on a Jet Plane, Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Going to the Chapel, All You Need is Love, A Teenager in Love. Why would these lyrics and song titles stick with me for after all these years? It's a gift.

Happy 3: Soul Man just came on! Blues Brothers, anyone?

Crappy: Still working on my Fine Arts paper. It's about Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This is an easy one, right up my alley. However, as it's past midnight and I'm still writing it, it's a slight struggle.

Day 71

Happy 1: I had a song stuck in my head all day. We sang it in church on Sunday and it's pretty wonderful. The song is I Just Want to Praise You and here is a great rendition of it for you to enjoy -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5TXbywAoCM.

Happy 2: Worked out, ate mashed potatoes, made depressingly long To Do list, watched political debate and laughed (such that my roommates thought I was watching a sitcom), cleaned out email inbox, watched show with roommates, enjoyed a bowl of ice cream, listened to Christmas music. Productive, yes. But my one goal for the evening was to write a three-page paper due Wednesday. I decided to take a leaf out of Scarlett O'Hara's book (pardon the pun) and "I'll think about that tomorrow."

Crappy: Flip Books. No, this is not the little books you make as a kid with a series of pictures that look like animation when you flip through it really fast. Nothing as fun as that. These flip books are for potential investors. It's a big project that I am so glad to be a part of. (In case you were wondering, that was written in sarcasm font.) We created the forty-five information sheets to go in each book, sent them out to get cut to size, brought them back to hole punch and bind. Lucky for me, I started working on the ridiculously time-consuming task of punching and binding this afternoon. Since the books are so thick, it takes four punches per book and there are about eighty books. Let's do the math, shall we? 80 x 4 = 320. That is the number of times I separated, aligned, punched, and stacked these little booklets. My arm hurts, and rightly so. Tomorrow I get to hole punch the front and back covers and then bind them all together. What fun awaits me! Be jealous.

Day 70

Happy 1: My roommates and I attended Urban Village Church this morning. The praise team was great. I could see the lead singer coming out with her own CD someday; the whole band was awesome. The church is very liberal; the motto on the front of the bulletin reads: "whoever you are - believer or doubter, gay or straight, Republican or Democrat, you are welcome here." Another indicator of their liberalness is on the getting-to-know-you paper where the options are: single or married / partnered. The pastor was very effeminate; he stood with his feet together and his hands on the small of his back. During the sermon he cursed and  used the Lord's name in vain. Both of which are not okay. While I didn't agree with everything the pastor said, there were some good things. He said that while people these days overuse PowerPoint (he called it death by PowerPoint), Jesus doesn't do that. Instead of filling a slide completely with text, He spoke through stories. These parables stop us in our tracks and stretch our imagination. We learn a lot more from that than we would if someone just said, "This is the answer." The pastor also talked about Jesus' focus on the small stuff. We, as Americans, like things to be big. The Gospel is pro-big as well, but it seems that Jesus focuses on the small stuff and turns it into big stuff. The next topic was about money. The pastor said that "Our giving doesn't change God, it changes us," which is totally true. Whew, that was a long message. I have learned that churches in Chicago are not concerned about the length of the service. Back home, if the service exceeded the allotted hour by even five minutes, the pastor got a talking to.

Happy 2: We had real food for supper tonight: homemade mashed potatoes, creamed corn, and chicken cordon bleu. Yum! I forgot what it's like to eat food other than macaroni or bologna and cheese sandwiches.

Crappy: I was under the weather most of the day (a nap and orange juice did wonders). Before church I took some DayQuil and it made me a little loopy. We were on an escalator and I tried to walk up the steps as it was moving (I do this every day). However, since I was drugged up, I got really dizzy-like and stumbled. Note to self: Drugs and escalators don't mix.

A joke for your amusement...
Question: What has four legs and goes, "Boo"?
Answer: A cow with a cold.

Day 69

Happy 1: Field trip! My Metro class and I went to Diwali, the Indian New Year celebration, held at Shri Swaminarayan Mandir. The whole experience was interesting. Our first stop was the "Shoe Station" where everyone had to remove their shoes and put them in a bag to be retrieved on our way out. The place was packed with a crazy amount of people; they told us that during the course of the day 25,000 people would be going through. Lucky for us, we had a tour guide. His name was Sitish (pronounced Sih-teesh), he spoke quietly but I learned a lot from what I could hear. The Mandir was beautiful and with incredibly intricate hand-carved wood and marble. Since everyone was sock-footed the marble floors were heated. Nice. Each year, the celebration has a theme and this year it was vegetarian(ism?). It's supposed to help you reflect and become inspired. Statues of their idol/god were everywhere and so were pictures of their spiritual leader/"inspirer." I was really uncomfortable and sad when I saw people bowing and praying to this non-god. On the way out, they gave us Indian sweets and a calendar with a picture of the inspirer. That's going up in the apartment, for sure.

Happy 2: My roommates finally returned from their travels to the Big Apple. While I enjoyed having the apartment to myself for a few days (in which time I cleaned the whole place, thank you very much), it is nice to have people to hang out with again.

Crappy: I never get sick. Never. However, I think I will be taking some NyQuil tonight...

Day 68

Happy 1: Mid-Point Evaluation. Today my Practicum Group Leader (PGL) came to MainStreet to meet with my supervisor and me. We talked about the internship: what I've been doing, how well I've been doing it, what I want to accomplish by the end of the semester. To be honest, I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. What if my performance is sub-par? I needn't have worried because my supervisor gave me an A- for an overall grade thus far. He's worked with six or seven other CS interns and he said that he rated me one of the highest. What do you know about that?

Happy 2: Worked late at the office because I just love it so much. For real. I got into the groove of things after four o'clock and didn't want to stop what I was working on. (I have to earn that A somehow.) On the way home I picked up some Garrett's Popcorn, the Chicago Mix. Then I turned on a movie and got to work; picked up the apartment, did laundry, did some paperwork. As you can tell, I went wild and crazy because it's my last night roommate-less.

Crappy: Okay, this kind of freaked me out. It was later in the evening and I was bumming around the apartment. I heard someone outside my door putting a key in the lock. I know it can't be my roommates because they're not getting back until tomorrow night. I stop what I'm doing and stare at the shadow of the person outside my door (actually it was shadows, plural, because I think there were two people). About thirty heart-pounding seconds went by and I heard the person try a different key. Why were these people trying to get in my apartment? Perhaps they were polluted. Perhaps they were confused. Whatever the reason, it sure got my attention. Good thing my dad provided me with Pepper Spray for just such an occasion. Thanks, Daddy! Oh, in case you're wondering, no one got in. They finally figured out they had the wrong door and left. Took 'em long enough.

Day 67

Happy 1: Morningstar Stock Forum. The forum was held downtown at the Palmer House Hilton. Since I arrived by myself, I had to find my own way around, which was confusing but I figured it out. There were seven forty-five minute sessions throughout the day in which the speaker, generally the CEO or CFO, would talk about the company: current position, past performance, future goals. I attended FedEx, Choice Hotels, General Mills, Boardwalk Pipeline, Strayer Education, Wipro, and General Electric; some of these presentations were better than others. The day was broken up by a catered lunch. I sat down to eat with my supervisor (he came later in the day) and was amazed to see six different utensils placed around my plate and a cloth napkin folded into a flower. On my plate was this strange lettuce sculpture. Upon further inspection it was lettuce decoratively placed inside a red cabbage shell. There were lots of interesting vegetables in the salad that I have no idea what they were; I tried really hard but didn't eat very much of it. At first I was really disappointed because I thought that was the meal. Boy, was I surprised when this old man whisked away my salad and replaced it with a yummy pasta dish. After that we ate a fruit cup dessert. The plate had a pretty design on it; but alas, it was no design, it was fancy frosting/sauce. In the afternoon there was snack time, too. There were huge yummy cookies, chips, pop, water, juice, basically anything you could ever want. I was going to grab a bottle of water but something caught my eye: La Croix Natural Berry Flavored Sparkling Water. How could I pass up something with the word 'sparkling' in its name? Sad to say, it tasted terrible. To be honest, I only took it because it looked super fancy. Funny story: Earlier in the day I was waiting for the next session to begin and was sitting in a comfy chair, or what rich people call comfy. This Indian guy asked me if there were any goodies in the Morningstar bag (every attendee got a bag with information packets in it). I told him there was a pen in my bag. He asked if it was nice. I told him it was pretty good. He said, "Let me see it." Alright, whatever floats your boat, buddy. So I whipped out the pen, he took it and turned his nose up at it. I said, "It's not good?" Apparently not. Come to find out, he was the CEO of one of the companies. Yeah, if I were a CEO I wouldn't be impressed by some free crappy pen, either.

Happy 2: Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We always get the cheapest tickets for Fine Art events. At the CSO, that means sitting at the very top of the concert hall in the nose bleed section. I could see the stage fine, it was minuscule, but I could see it. The seats were so straight up that I felt like I was falling forward which gave a whole new meaning to the phrase 'sitting on the edge of my seat.' All of the music was composed by Aaron Copland. The entire concert was phenomenal but my favorite song was Appalachian Spring, which is the piece I've been focusing on in my Art Encounter papers. The music was rich and beautiful and it sent chills down my spine and brought tears to my eyes. Yay for classical music.

Crappy: Given that I spent my day at the aforementioned activities, it was a long day of sitting and listening.

Day 66

Happy 1: One would assume that the classes at Chicago Semester would be easy. True, they are much less rigorous than college but they still call for some effort. At the beginning of the semester we were given the choice between three small-group leaders for the Fine Arts class. I chose the music guy and he ,of course, has the highest standards of the bunch. However, when I receive a good grade I know that it was deserved. Today was one of those days. On our weekly art reflections we are graded on three things and I received all check pluses. (I think that is equivalent to an A but there's no way to be sure; he gives checks, check pluses, and check minuses. So is a check minus a C? I hope not, because I've received a few of those.) We also got our Second Art Encounters back; mine was about Aaron Copland. The grade on the paper: A+. That's right, I'm pretty much a genius.

Happy 2: In Metro we watched snippets of "A Class Divided," the documentary about an Iowa teacher that taught her third grade class a lesson about discrimination. On the first day she made the blue-eyed students the superior race and on the second day she made the brown-eyed students superior. Since third graders are young and impressionable, they really got into it. One kid even punched his best friend in the stomach for calling him names at recess. The students learned that people are no better than others because of their eye color, or skin color, for that matter. I thought it was a great way to tackle the difficult issue of race. And the kids were super cute with their little horn-rimmed glasses.

Crappy: My roommates left me to go to New York until Saturday. They helped their college professor with a film project last year and that film is premiering in New York at a festival. Since they played large roles in the production, the college paid for their round-trip plane tickets. Fun for them. Lonely for me.

Day 65

Happy 1: Election Day! Republicans clenched the House majority but it looks like Democrats retained control of the Senate. Brandstad is projected to take the governorship from Culver but I hardly think that's an improvement. Exciting news just in: all three Iowa Supreme Court judges (the ones that overstepped their authority and made gay marriage permissible in this state) were voted out. Way to go, Iowa!

Happy 2: Today I finally finished a project I've been working on for weeks. It needn't have taken this long but I had to wait for my supervisor to teach me how to link certain cells. I am so glad to be done with it. I feel very accomplished now. Woot.

Crappy: My supervisor and I made plans to go to a stock forum all day on Thursday. However, our plans changed when my supervisor was told he needed to be at a meeting in the office Thursday morning. Now I have to check myself in and spend the first couple hours at the forum by myself. Granted, it was my choice to do it; I figured it would be a good learning experience for me. We shall see.

Day 64

Happy 1: So, I messed up today. It's a long story, so I'll try to keep it brief. I was working in Excel, linked a cell to a different spreadsheet, saved, and closed. In the meantime, someone deleted that specific piece of information that was linked and when I tried to open up my file it read: "Error. Unable to Load." Sweet. I started tweakin' out (a common phrase that I hear around the workplace) because I thought I had lost all of the data, about 300 cells worth of stuff that I didn't know if it was retrievable or not. Sick to my stomach with the thought of telling my supervisor what happened, I decided to figure it out for myself. Lucky for me, I had written down the changes I made, and was able to find the original file from six weeks ago in my desktop recycling bin. Whew! Catastrophe averted. It was without a doubt a God thing.

Happy 2: One of my co-workers is getting married this coming weekend. They put a card in a manila folder and passed it around for everyone to sign. It was kind of fun to be sneaky. Then, right before the end of the day, the boss called everyone in for a company meeting. It turned out to be a two-minute celebration / presentation of the card to the groom-to-be. He was completely caught off guard. It was slightly awkward. Fun times.

Crappy: I sat in on the Monday morning conference call as usual and this is what I heard at the start of the call. "Good morning. Like B Mac (a nickname for a guy in the office) would say, 'What up, Dawg?'" The guy on the other end answered, "What up, what up?" It's kind of like when my parents do the fist bump. It's just wrong. I mean, seriously, these guys are in their forties and fifties. Please stop. You are not cool. I repeat, you are not cool.