It's not a bomb

At this point in my life, I oscillate between the emotions of “oh my god, life is great, what a gift it is to be young” and “the money I would give to live the life of the bear posted on the “Sleepy Time” box” So to put in way fewer words. I am equally happy and exhausted. I have taken two out of three of my midterms this week, one of which I took directly before writing this. So on the school side of things, I am on the roller coaster, of having nothing due, or 15 things due.

To get into the juicier part of this post. My week has been…strange. This morning, Tuesday, Oct. 17, I took the 7 AM shuttle downtown. The ride is about 25 minutes when its not rush hour, and an hour or so when it is, (keep in mind I typically ride during rush hour). You might be saying, “why did you skip breakfast, the most important meal of the day, to be on a bus when your class doesn’t start till 8:30?” great question, I had my midterm! Being the smart, savvy, queen I am, I like to dodge a bit of that rush-hour traffic and get to class extra early. But not this time. I was on the bus for two and a half hours. In standstill traffic. Actively missing my posted time for my midterm. I arrived to my 8:30 class at the punctual time of 9:25. But God bless my professor she let me take it with full time, and I think I did half-decent. As a final point, I do take an exceeding amount of time to talk about how much I hate the shuttle, but that is because it is fresh on my mind.

Now for a hard left, I am now in the intermural trivia team, seeing the Frankenstein ballet this Saturday, had a meeting with my RA about my roommate troubles, and was, um, intensely talked at by an un-housed person, (that’s right this blog is PC), outside a Trader Joes before taking the Uber ride of a lifetime, all well battling a cough that sounds like I have consumption. Also, my grandma sent me cookies.

Going in that order of events it makes sense to dive into the one that had the most impact. The cookies, the were delish. Also, the Trader Joes thing.

Of note, I do not buy into the notion that Chicago is inherently a

more dangerous place than other cities. I enjoy the “Chi-raq” joke as much as the next person, but I do not live in constant fear as some would suggest. I will also add, having this blog means that almost everything I do that doesn’t work out, or even has an unintended outcome is immediately filed into my brain as what I will call, “an emotional tax-write-off”. Because hey, life is funny.

On to the story; Imagine, its 2PM, you’ve been to two museums and are walking to a Trader Joe’s to find a vegetarian version of a “hamburger pizza”, I’ve never heard of one but Megan was excited to see if we could find one. After securing the goods you are waiting for an uber, and we decide to wait the 7 minutes outside. It’s a gorgeous day, and well standing there chatting you are approached by an individual who holds a one-sided conversation with such highlights as “would you guess I’m homeless?”- Yes, the arm full of hospital bracelets does suggest you’ve had a harder life than most. As well as the highlight of “I’ve been suicidal- and homicidal” when trying to explain to me the program putting signs in the CTA stations attempting to prevent people from jumping in front of the trains. Overall, a strange but not unsafe interaction. Especially after assuring us that he did not have a bomb in his backpack. Yeah. But that was last week so practically a lifetime ago.

As for more positive things, fall has officially hit Chicago! Which means three things, colors, wind, and BIRDS! We are officially in peak migration for birds passing over cook county. And these city birds are built different, like never in my life have I been in such proximity to so many birds. I have almost tripped over a golden-crowned kinglet and been so close to an ovenbird I could reach out my hand and touch it. After what has been a month of only seeing house sparrows and pigeons, this has been an ever so welcome change.

Well, to avoid rambling on any longer I will wrap this up with a happy note of my history professor giving my entire class a package of Oreos to share as a treat for completing the midterm. Thank you, Peter, your 5-star rate my professor review was well-earned.

As for the rest of you, kisses hugs, and hope that the Michigan fall foliage isn’t all rained away by next week.

Time to get back on the shuttle,

Gretchen E Rojewski

A little art thing I went to

Bird. Tweet Tweet

Trivia team!