Chicago, the city of Bipolar weather, perfect for me!

Well with no pun intended (well maybe a little) in that title, Chicago has really been a bag of surprises lately. It has gone from sunny and 10 degrees, to sunny and 45 degrees, to 20 degrees and freezing snow that melts into lots of water the next day when it goes to 50 degrees again, and now this morning, it is lightly snowing. So despite the sky not being able to make up its mind and the unseasonably warm days we've been having, I am slowly reminded that it is still winter this morning, even though the snow is not sticking and I walked to and from the coffee shop with just a warm sweater, no jacket. I also remembered that is is now March, and that spring will soon be upon us, hopefully.

However I would love to mention the awesome coffee shop I went to this morning, but it requires a short background story before of how I ended up there. Around 10am my roommate came in and said that some people were going to get breakfast at the Cozy Diner, a cute little place by the train which I've heard nothing but good things about there food. She asked me to come and at that point I had been up for an hour or so reading and I was definitely getting hungry. I threw on a sweater over my leggings, and waited for the rest of them to finish getting ready.

Growing up Jewish, I've been to quite a few diners and breakfast places, and I assumed that my roommates had the same background knowledge about how busy diners are on a Saturday morning around 10:30, and you are always expected to wait but it rarely takes more than five or ten minutes to be seated. I guess I assumed wrong, and as soon as they saw the crowd, they quickly decided to go across the street to the Taqueria for Mexican food. I felt bad leaving them, but I just was not in the mood for Mexican this morning, so I said I'd catch them later and I was just going to walk back.

I didn't walk more than 20 feet before I saw a sign that was ringing a bell in my brain. Cafe Mustache was just staring at me from right across the street. Now, wasn't that the coffee shop that I've heard about from no less than 3 people who live or have lived around here, but had yet to try? If I couldn't try the diner this morning, why not take the opportunity to try something else new? Besides I really wanted breakfast. and Coffee. Turns out, the Coffee was really good (and bottomless!) and the scone was perfectly sweet. the place was full, but not crowded, there was no line but almost always a customer at the counter, and it was quiet, but not silent, with music you could here and a perfect hum of people, but 1000 times more relaxing than the fast paced noise you'd find in any Starbucks on a Saturday morning. I stayed a little over 20 minutes enjoying my breakfast and then decided I need not dilly dally as I have so much work to get done this weekend.

Backtrack to last night, a bunch of the students from the program were going to this comedy thing with a moderate cover charge. When I turned them down, someone said I was going to regret not going to things. I think they were pointing out the fact that I don't do things with "the group" as much as the rest of them. But in all honestly I probably more experiences than they have. I go to film screenings and coffee shops. They go to museums and Subway(the restaurant chain). When they chose to stay in and have a small gathering of students chill at the apartment last Friday night, exactly like they would do any weekend at college dorms, I chose to take advantage of free tickets to a play instead. I like to think that a lot of the students in this program take advantage of the popular, where as I like to think I take advantage if the unexpected, unpopular, or last minute. Again different interests. Peace.

6 people, one shower,

Well at least the whole one shower thing was a success this morning. we will continues to figure out a good schedule, I'm sure.

hysterically a coincidence, my new roommate is the other Emily Summers! but she is super sweet and I'm so glad she is. :)

We all stayed up a bit to late but all slept very well. Today is officially our first day of actual orientation and I think I speak for all of us when I say we are all really excited. There is some sort of city scavenger hunt today though, which I don't think us running around outside in the cold is that great. Hopefully though the weather does not seem to bad.

I am so busy I don't even have time to thin about the tragedies of late until I rest my head on my pillow at night. Sometimes I just feel like crying then, but I usually just try to get distracted in a book and forget about the world. Any suggestions on dealing with any of this? Peace.

ps: sending prayer for my papa (grandpa) today who is having knee surgery. <3

Hyde What?

Hello all, tonight's going to be a short one but thought I'd let you all know that I am officially a chicagoan, if that's what its called. This a picture of the apartment I'm staying at temporarily until mine's ready next weekend. Right now I'm in Hyde park and I will be moving to Logan square, an awesome neighborhood with a diverse mix of people.

Here's a funny coincidence for you. I'm here early for the semester because I'm helping the ACM office with some clerical and cleaning work, along with one other student Emily Summer's. Crazily there are 2 Emily Summer's doing the Chicago thing this semester and the other one (who's not here yet) is one of my new apartment mates in Logan Sqaure! How awesome is this. And possibly a bit confusing in the near future. Hope you all are fantastical and as always, Peace.