Uploading Documents on Blogger

Delays, delays, delays!

I really and truly am not abandoning this blog. We have had various computer issues over the past few weeks, but we're slowly getting them resolved. Expect copious amounts of blogging over the next few weeks as I try to catch up!

Day 1 of Chicago Living

July 11, 2011

So, I count today as my first day "living" in Chicago - to celebrate this, I acted like a complete tourist. After riding around on the trains for a bit, Heather and I spent the majority of the day at the Field Museum, where we encountered whales, the t-rex named Sue, and the seemingly never-ending Americas exhibit. We stayed until closing and were unceremoniously chased out by the museum workers, snapping pictures of dinosaur bones as we left. I'd been to the Field before on our orchestra trip when I was fifteen, and had very fond memories of it. Of course, since most of my high school experience was also defined by the fact that I explored the museum with a certain punk-cool guy I had a crush on, it wasn't quite the same! Oh, high school...if my future husband had come to the museum that day instead of going to Navy Pier, maybe I would have been hanging out with him! However, I wasn't disappointed - I think it's definitely changed since then, and I just am a total dork for museums.

In front of Sue :)

Heather and I with some interesting Native American art things. Very accurate, I know.

After getting kicked out of the museum, we decided a visit to the tallest tower in the Western Hemisphere was in order. This I hadn't done before, though I do remember going up into the observatory in the John Hancock center. We wandered a bit before finding the entrance to the part where you can actually go up into the Sears (Willis) Tower, but then decided food was in order first. We had seen several restaurants in the businessy part of the tower, so we went back up there and ended up in a Mexican restaurant that in retrospect we probably weren't supposed to be in. We were definitely the only non-businessmen there. It was good though, and no one told us to get out, so a little awkwardness was all we really endured. The tower it self was pretty impressive:

Once we got to the top, the view was absolutely magnificent. I loved seeing the whole city sprawled out beneath us, and the little Skydeck was a pretty neat experience. It was basically just a little plastic box jutting out from the side of the building, but looking down and seeing the whole city beneath your feet is still a bit intense.

This is a picture of a picture, so quality's not great. Still cool.

Also, the tower was a museum in an of itself - all along the walls they had information about the city and famous people and events. I especially enjoyed the wall of Chicago authors.

Gwendolyn Brooks and Carl Sandburg are my favorites.

Overall, it was a good start of to living here, even though it made me feel very much like a tourist. I still can't really believe I'm not just on vacation. The next day, I spent the majority of the day at work with my new colleagues, who I love. We did some excellent planning and I'm now completely excited about teaching American literature. I've always been leery of teaching juniors because *insert English teacher tears here* there's no Shakespeare, but our line up of literature is actually pretty great. We're teaching One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Beloved, among several other almost equally awesome novels. I've said it before, but I'm so excited to be working at ChiArts. I feel extremely blessed by this opportunity and am only looking forward to getting more involved here! Of course, Andrew is sad not to be up here yet and is fussing at me for doing all the fun stuff without him, but I know I'll be willing to do it all today! :)

Our New Chapter

For those of you who don't already know, this summer marks a major change for Andrew and me. We've spent the past two years living and working in Hopkinsville, and while it's been a great experience for both of us, now it is time to move on. We've always known we were (hopefully) headed to the "big city," although until about March of this year that's always been kind of a vague ideal. However, that murky vision is now much clearer, and we're poised on the verge of moving to Chicago - aka the Windy City, ChiTown, ChiCity, (my personal favorite) etc. Everything, thank the Lord, has actually fallen pretty perfectly into place; although it has been stressful, looking back over the past few months it's been unusually smooth. Andrew finished his round of auditions and was accepted to several good universities, then he decided on DePaul after working with his new professor there. He also got one their highest scholarships, which of course will help immensely. Then I began the horrible and nerve-wracking process of applying for jobs in a city with 500+ high schools. Although it seemed pretty intense at the time, in reality it was probably much easier than I had a right to expect. I began putting in applications in late March/early April, interviewed several places in May, and then received the job offer from my dream school (this is not at all an exaggeration) the first week of June. After that, all that was left was for us to find an apartment, which we did last week. My new school is sending me to the ASCD conference in Boston next week, and then I officially begin my work at ChiArts the first week of July, as they have curriculum work/planning/PD for two days a week throughout the summer.

Our new apartment is in the middle red brick townhouse.

This is a pic off google - it's pretty and green right now.

I know we will miss our hometown area. For the past week or so, I've been paying a lot of attention to the fields. Those rolling acres of green and gold just aren't going to exist in Chicago. Even though our new street actually does have a respectable number of nice trees lining the sidewalks, it just won't quite be the same. Plus, this is home. Our friends and family are here. I don't think we'll be able to leave without a hefty element of sadness. However, I know we're both looking forward to this opportunity so much. We'll be surrounded by everything, which will be a nice change from being surrounded by mostly nothing. Also, the area we'll be living in is almost entirely made up of college students and young professionals, so hopefully our new friend cup will runneth over. And for those we're leaving in KY, there's always facebook! Plus, we'll definitely be back lots for holidays and breaks. Overall, I just think it will an incredible experience, and I'm going to do my best to actually keep a good record of it. So if you want to keep track of what's going on with us as we begin this exciting new adventure, keep on reading!