Hello Spring Quarter, Good bye Spring Break

Tomorrow, Monday, morning begins my 3rd, and last, quarter of this academic year. I’m still exahusted from last quarter. I have something to read for Thursday, and I’m already procrastinating! But, here I go, back into the pressure cooker. I’ve changed my mind regarding classes more than once. Now, I’m taking 3 classes, down one from last quarter. The classes satisfy the needs of the three different areas in which I might apply to Phd programs. I hope hope that they are good and I like them. I will not be taking Hebrew. I need a break, and next fall I will begin taking Modern Hebrew. Hopefully, that will go better for me. Although I am not looking forward to the pressure cooker–I could use another week off to collect myself–I’m looking forward to coffee at the Div School coffee shop and seeing people and having random chats throughout the day. I like the spontaneous social-ness of the lounge and the Div school in general.

Here we go! wish me luck!

Spring Break is over

I had a lovely spring break. It was exactly what I needed: relaxation.

Unfortunately, it began in a rather panicky way. After spending a wonderful day with my parents, sister, aunt, and the puppy, my sister and I had Sunday school. Well, I had school to teach and she had a website to design.  So, that wasn’t break. We spent Sunday afternoon downtown, mostly people watching. She took photos at Millenium Park, we went to a cupcake bakery and bought mini-cupcakes. yum! We ate those at Borders while reading/people watching from above. We finished off our day with some yummy thai food and TV.

Monday morning was an early morning. I had ordered a cab the night before to take us to the Blue Line el stop, to shave off some travel time. Unfortunately, the cab hadn’t arrived 15 minutes after it’s promised time. So, we had to shlep to the bus to the train station. It was super windy. And I ended up running upstairs for my winter coat, which I had hoped to leave behind. After getting into the train station, my sister got her handle stuck. Whoops. I went back through the turnstile to detach it. And, of course, it wouldn’t turn again. And the machine freaked out at my card, not letting me back in. I never have gone over/under a turnstile in a subway before. Now, I have. I am short, so I craweled UNDER the turnstile. What an experience! It happened so fast that I have no details. Needless to say, we got to the airport on time. We LOVED JetBlue. It was so nice to have the personal TV screens and the free snacks (with variety) were great.

Our stay in Florida was very relaxing, as I said. My grandparents live in a country club, with a pool at the house and one at the “club”. We spent a lot of time at the club, because my grandparents decided not to keep the pool heat on. What did we do? mostly we read by the pool or swam. The weather was in the low 70s, not super warm, and there were 10-15 mph winds every day. The wind made it chilly, so that was a disappointment. But, we did get to the beach, where we did not swim. Too windy and cold. We read and my sister took really cool photos.

We had some really nice meals with my grandparents. And, for me, it was just so nice to be cooked for. And, of course, we had my Grandma’s amazing blintzes. There’s nothing like them. ANYWHERE.

We were supposed to go to a one-person theater production, however that person was sick so the show was cancelled. We thought about going to the movies, but nothing good was playing that all of us hadn’t seen. So, TV was our primary evening entertainment. We should have played a game, actually…but we didn’t. One day, though, we took Grandma to Whole Foods. They just built one nearby. That was really fun. They won’t shop there, of course, but it was a fun experience. The store was really nice and instead of the cool noodle shop at the new South Loop location, they had an espresso bar/gelato shop. (I know they sell gelato everywhere, but this was formatted differently).Good evening entertainment!

I enjoyed myself and soaked vitamin D into my skin, hopefully it’ll last. And I only got sunburned at the beach, inconveniently on my calves. Oh well.

Spring Break

I’m off to Florida with my sister for spring break. We’ll be visiting our grandparents. Be back Saturday.

What I have been doing during Finals week of Winter Quarter 2009

1. bought junk food including veggie booty, organic teddy grahams (they were the same price as the non-organic ones!), pretzels, and goldfish (ok, I actually buy these quite often, and a 12 pack of diet cherry coke and one of diet root beer.

2. eaten said junk food (except for the pretzels). and Thai and Chinese food. finals treats.

3. taken walks.

4. talked to Smithies on the phone for hours. Ok. this happens a lot anyway, because I love my Smith friends. But, still it’s happened this week too.

5. had coffee with 2 Smithies at U of C.

6. Spent hours upon hours studying hebrew. Really, this is what I’ve been doing with my time.

7. reading blogs, expecially parenting blogs, I love the kid stories! and I was really into unschooling blogs but now, I’m starting to realize that I wouldn’t really like their kids. They have no limits. (most families) and some even let their kids eat whatever they want whenever they want and go to bed without limits (which means, apparently, staying up until 11PM or 1AM as a preschooler, NOT cool).

8. skyping and emailing with my amazing friend N (who’s a U of C friend)

9. being tutored in Hebrew and going to an extra long review session.

10. scheming about lesson plans for Sunday school

11. planning my paper (1 of 2)

12. looking at apartments. Ok, only did this yesterday. But I will do it again tomorrow.

13. having panic attacks and worrying that my text messages don’t go through. and then panicking about that (so silly!)

14. Spending 2 hours at the allergists only to discover that the sinus infection that I thought was gone about a month ago is still lingering and that there might be an extra special infection just in my nose. Fun! I have had a sinus infection for 6 months straight now. I’m super cool and chock-full of antibiotics again. yay!

what do I need to do?

Well, before midnight, I need to turn in a paper. And then I need to start another one, but I’ll turn it in later, I guess.

And on Monday I will be taking a vacation!!!! to Florida!!!! where it’ll be warm and I can go swimming and hang out with my sister and grandparents.

Thinking about friends

This year, before I started grad school for year (not the intensive) I worried about making school friends. I didn’t feel really connected to anyone, I was nervous that I was too different. Of course my friend worries were unnecessary, I quickly developed a neat little threesome. I felt safe in these friendships and although they were intense because our program is intense, they seemed lasting. They may still be lasting, but in one there is a bump. And that bump is forcing me to take another look at the goodness of friendship.

I am so used to having old friends. Friends that are predictable in behavior and that know and understand me through history (which, crazily enough, if we met in first year of college is about 9 years ago).  We get each other through the hard times. We make each other laugh. We celebrate success. Most of these friendships are over the phone, since I went to an East coast college. A few are here at home. On Friday night, my three old friends and I went out for dinner on the Northside. And for a little over 2 hours, we laughed and joked and enjoyed old camraderie that had NOTHING to do with school. Yes, 3 of the 4 of us are at the same graduate institution (in different programs). But, mostly, we didn’t talk about school. We just enjoyed ourselves. I felt good (and the Eithipian food was amazing). I felt normal and grounded and happy. I drove home thinking about how grateful I was to have those 3 friends. And how special it was to be able to take time out and laugh with them, no matter the mood that I arrived with.

Today, flowers were outside my apartment door. Flowers! I have never received flowers from anyone. I don’t typically have flower-receiving types of relationships. But, I have been having a rough quarter filled with failure, rejection, and self-flagellation. And another old friend, one I met when she was a first year and I was a senior at college, knew about my mood. And she knew that the hardest is yet to come–finals. So, she sent me cheerful, beautiful flowers that were a perfect antidote to the grey day and the long, paper-writing weekend I just experienced.  They made me feel loved and safe. I was reminded how good I have it. I have so many good friends, that live in Chicago and around the world. I am so grateful to have you all in my life.

thank you friends.

week 9 at the U of C

It’s the middle of week 9. I do a presentation on Friday and a quiz, as always. And tomorrow, I get another 4 day paper, due on Monday.  So, don’t expect much of me. This has been an incredibly rough quarter. I can’t wait for a clean slate. Come on spring quarter!