The Fakers, Friday, September 30, 7pm CST, The Humble Bean, Be There!

mmmmm... i want to cry when I miss this stuff. Everybody within 300 miles of Sioux Center better be there!

Getting Busy

Thursday night was Soundtrack City Chicago... a super talented artist who did all kinds of great beatboxing and sound effects with nothing but his mouth. Friday night Nate Marcus talked me into going to a baseball game... White Sox vs. Twins. The Sox won. Saturday was really crazy. CS does this thing called the progressive dinner... about 10 rooms signed up to make food...3 for appetizers from 5-6; 4 for entrees at 6-7; and 3 for desert at 7-8. So then we wandered all over Chicago from room to room eating waaaaay to much food. I tried to help Lance make Chicken Cordon Bleu... all I did was set the smoke alarm off though... I don't think I was much help. On Sunday we went to this crazy-huge baptist church... I think it's the biggest church in Chicago. It was a little bit different than 1st CRC... interesting though. Today I worked. It was good... I think... tonight is a long discussion about the church experience... after food...

the tedium of mundane activity

I just got done with a "practicum group" meeting. I still don't really know what that word means... I should probably find out eventually. Anyhow... not a whole lot new here. Work was good today. I didn't eat any ethnic food today. I ran 4 miles along the beach with Lance last night. Might do it again tonight. But right now I should go, cuz we have quite a bit of reading to do.

I couldn't think of any good ideas for a title for this boring post. If everyone clicks comments and leaves me an idea for a title for this post, i'll pick the best one and replace "Title" with it.

working at work

Today was the first time I actually had a pile of stuff to do at work. I like it much better this way. I feel much less useless, even though I honestly didn't accomplish a whole lot. I had lunch with one of the creative directors at a Thai resturaunt. I sort of interviewed him for the booklet project I am doing to show that I am actually learning stuff here. It was very tasty and educational at the same time.

I feel like I have quite a bit of reading and stuff to do tonight. Not so fun... oh well... i can't really complain... after that week of doing almost nothing but sitting at the beach.

I think one hard thing about this job will be going home at night when projects aren't done yet. I'm used to sitting in the mac lab working on stuff until i can't stand the lack of oxygen and natural light or until the librarians kick me out. This place is quite comfortable and I can stay as late as I want. But I think Young is making hamburgers, so I'm heading out.

I just notices that roughly 75% of my blog is about food. Hmmm.... oh well.

morning coffee

I actually got to work a little bit early this morning... time for a quick post!

There was a nice mug on my desk when I started here, but it was quite dirty on the inside. I've just let it set here for a week. I actually washed it and filled it with coffee now.

Elevators are strange. Yesterday I was telling someone that I'm not used to walking in and turning around to face the door because there are only like 2 elevators in Sioux Center and neither are ever very crowded. Then this morning on my way up here someone stepped into the crowded elevator and faced us all. He was a really tall guy who spoke Dutch or German or something. It was awkward. I will always face the door now.

Another thing I'm picking up on is reading on the L. I used to always put my book in my bag to get on the train and then take it back out only if 1. The train was fairly empty 2. I had a seat 3. I had more than two stops to wait for. Now I keep my book out, read it in a crowd standing up even if I only have to go one stop. Right now I have to read Merchant of Venice, which I'll admit is easier to read in public than a book on the difference between poor wage workers and middle class people (Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich).

it's been a while...

Haven't posted all weekend. I'll use a bullet list:
●Friday night went to a place called Mr. J's Dawg and Burger - cheap and good
●Didn't do a whole lot else that night
●Saturday morning cleaned up the apartment
●looked for thrift stores with Young - found a huge salvation army with all kinds of good stuff - didnt' buy anything though
●went to target to get some stuff, but forgot half my list
●Young, Rachel, and I went to Chinatown with Jian. Ate at authentic Chinese resturaunt... J didn't tell us what we had eaten until we were done... turns out it was rabbit, lamb, and pork... all tasted good, but did not sit well
●wandered around trying to find some club... eventually found it... it was kinda cool, but absolutely packed and clostraphobic
●tried to go to a CRC that was listed in the Chicago Semester handbook... turned out it had moved. Couldn't find any other church nearby
●went back to apartment and ate eggs
●did two loads of laundry... tried to iron... i think i made everything worse... ironing is very frustrating for me. I'm going to start mailing my clothes to mom to iron
●went to a sushi bar with Nate and Young... Nate is big into Sushi... he kindly gave me a mouthfull of Wasabi before i knew what it was... i think i also tried tuna, salmon, and flying fish eggs... i don't know if i would have been able to choke it all down if it hadn't been for the asahi and kiran icheban.
●decided i better not eat out that much even more (even though Nate covered the Sushi)
●tried to get to work early to work on some stuff... once again i only got there about 10 minutes early... not too helpful
●stayed at work late to work on some of my own stuff
●caught the purpleline train to the CS office
●here i am now

So this is a picture of me with my new shirt from threadless (once again...to order yours, click on the link on the right sidebar) Thanks for the shirt Meg! I look kinda chunky in this photo. I may in fact be kinda chunky. It has pretty much been way to hot to go running... until today. I should really go tonight....maybe...

So anyway, we went to see Wicked last night. I'd be an idiot if I said it wasn't good but I'll just be honest and say it's not my cup of tea. We were pretty much sitting on the ceiling of the huge theatre miles away from the stage. I definitely prefer being closer to the action with less props and production. I think if your going to put that much effort into something, go make a movie. I don't know... I just wasn't real into it. I could go off about it, but I won't.

Tonight we had the first full length meeting with our practicum groups. We just sorta talked about how things are going at our internships. Half the group told their life story. I go next week. Normally we will meet on Friday afternoons, but not this time. So tomorrow I guess my weekend starts early!

A little bit about my internship so far... yesterday I went with my supervisor to this super-crazy little video production place downtown. They showed me how they do all the color correction stuff. They had 29 reels to go through for a commercial for a gas station (I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, so I'll just leave out the details of huge major corporations that could sue me to death for talking about them on my blog). I was really suprised to learn that most commercials are still shot on film. The guy says it's because that's what the pros are comfortable with now, and that slowly but surely it will all shift to digital. I'm getting more stuff to work on while I'm at work, but I decided that I better lay down the $30 for a copy of InDesign classroom in a book so I can learn it while I have access to it. Pretty much everyone recommends learning InDesign and says that Quark will be gone soon.

Once again... way to long of a post... I gotta get back to the apt and grab some supper!

They found the jaguar shark!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news
/2005/09/0907_050907_glowingshark.html

Day 2 at Ogilvy

I couldn't really call this post "day 2 at work". I didn't really do any work today. That's okay with me. I went through some on-line tutorial things to try to learn how to use Adobe InDesign and I finished typing up the Internship Learning Contract that I had to put together with my supervisor. It just covers what I want to learn and help out with while I'm there. I talked to the guy in the cube next to me for quite a while. He showed me the stuff that he is working on. Everything is still very interesting to me so in spite of the fact that I'm not really doing anything, I haven't really gotten bored yet.

The train was unbelievably packed on the way home tonight. The conductor announced that there was another train right behind us every time we stopped, but more people kept packing on. It was hard to get off when we got to my stop. It was even harder to get any reading done. Consequently I still have quite a bit of reading to get done before Friday and tomorrow night we are going to see the musical Wicked...the story of the witches of oz... or something.

I am really enjoying suppers together, even though we're only as together as you can be when the apartments only have 2 chairs. Jian cooked Chinese tonight. Some sort of dumpling. It was actually really good.

While I'm throwing pictures on here I'll put the one I tried to take of myself at my desk yesterday. I just tried once and then decided I better not weird out my coworkers too much by photographing myself the first day on the job. Obviously I didn't want to use the flash. But you can see some buildings in the background!

Don't worry, sooner or later I'll start putting up some good pictures. I better go get some reading done now though.

I work on the 11th floor of this building. I took this photo from the tour boat one of the first the first nights we were here.

Our sweet murphey beds... pulled out of the wall. Mine is the one with the blanket. Jian's is the other one. I took this photo before we were totally moved in.

Young, Rob (me), Nate, and Lisa at Navy Pier

Monday nights at the CS office

So I guess I'm a monitor here at the CS offices every monday night from 6-10. Easy work for good pay. Today was my first day at Ogilvy. It went pretty well. They really didn't have a whole lot for me to do, but I was okay with that. It was nice to have some time to get situated. I have a cube right by the window above the River.

I don't know how much I'll be able to say about what I do at work. Tomorrow I have to sign some confidentiality agreement or something.

For now I'll just say I'm pretty happy I picked Ogilvy for my internship site.

I'm gonna add some more links now... I might post more later since I'll be here all night.

real quick like...

I'd better make this quick because i have to get back up to my neck of the woods to make supper for everybody. We are starting shared suppers tonight. I am really looking forward to it. It'll be a little complicated because we live in three different rooms of the building and each room only has like 2 chairs and a couch. There are 7 of us involved at this point. I'm thinking of making spaghetti, because I have some and i know how to make it.

Josh and Kris brought me all my cooking supplies and my 35mm camera yesterday. It was like Christmas. Plus they got me a whole bunch of good food stuff (that's why I have spaghetti already). I really want to make tacos for everyone just like Sam makes, but they never turn out as good when I make them. Sam makes the best tacos in the world. We ate at a place called Su Casa last night and I had tacos there. They were definitely not as good as Sam's tacos.

I start at Ogilvy tomorrow. I'm pretty super nervous right now. I'm not entirely sure why... I guess because it is so different from Hardee's, Pizza Hut, Double V, Servicemaster, and Cinema 5. It's more like... what i do for fun and for school... which is really strange. I guess I should be more excited and happy than nervous. So it goes...

From the Chicago Public Library

I will try to keep my posts shorter and more entertaining when possible. I think they have been long and boring. Anyhow, this library is amazing. It is huge. At first I wan't that impressed... until i found out i was just in one tiny little room of a library that's several floors. I think I will probably make this my place for blogging and emailing. It is better than starbucks because i don't feel bad for not buying anything and it is better than the CS office because it is open every day and there are convenient outlets to plug into. Unfortunately, i think this place closes at 7 Monday-Thursday and at 5 on the weekends.

There are actually quite a few of us who don't start at our sites until Monday. So yesterday Young and I just went to the beach again. The weather wasn't as nice as it has been. The two of us were just laying in the sand when some girl came up and asked if she could photograph us for the Red Eye (which is a $.25 newspaper put out by the Chicago Tribune). We were really weirded out, but we let her anyway. We threw the frisbee around while she laid in the sand and took a million photos. Apparently she was an intern and her assignmnet was to take some photos laying on the ground.... strange....

Last night we went with a bunch of other CS people to Howl at the Moon. I guess it's what they call a piano bar. There are two pianists, a bassist, and a drummer, and I guess they can play just about any song you can think of... or so they say. Mike (I think he's a student at Hope) requested Only Time by Enya as a joke. They pretty much just made fun of the request. Young and I requested Whiskey in the Jar, which they didn't play either. I was no longer impressed. I guess they made up for it later when they played Ring of Fire (but really, who doesn't know that one?) I've had a lot of Ethan Koerner's songs in my head lately. I miss hearing him and Josh and Reub sing. They're way better than those stinking Piano Bar windbags.

Check out threadless.com (I have a link on the side) buy a Katrina t shirt. The money goes to hurricane relief. Mine's on the way. Thanks Meg!

Ogilvyone

I think a lot has happened since the last time I've posted. Mainly I've determined which intership site I will be at for the semester. It is a PR firm called Ogilvy in a division called Ogilvyone... i think that's how that all works out. It's on the 11th floor of 350 West Mart Center, which is connected to the Merchandise Mart via a walkway over the street. I am really excited. The first time I got an email that said that I might have a chance at working there I checked out the website and quickly determined that the place was way too awesome of a place for me to have a chance at working. I guess I was wrong. I talked to the person who will be my supervisor this morning on the phone. I am not a huge fan of talking over the phone and I've had to do quite a bit today. After I talked to her, I had to call all the other places that I interviewed at. I left some really awkward messages I think....oh well... so it goes... Then I proceeded to write them all hand-written thank you notes. More awkwardness. So it goes.

The post office here is insanely large. I had to wait quite a while when I was buying stamps for the thank you notes... the stupid machines wouldn't take my money, which was really quite crisp if i may say so myself. I bought the American Architecture stamps. If you haven't seen them, check them out...they're pretty cool. Two of the buildings are even in Chicago! This is probably the most boring paragraph I've ever entered in my blog. It ends here.

So anyhow, because I didn't really have my site figured out until today, I won't start my internship until Monday. I have a four day weekend! I don't really know what I'm going to do. I don't care what anybody says, it is hard to find stuff to do that doesn't cost money. I'll find something. Maybe the beach for the 4th or 5th day in a row. It'll actually be the second time today. I jogged a few miles along the beach this morning. It was nice, but I'm not in the best shape ever.

Last night Young and I hitched a ride to Best Buy with some other guys. He wanted help picking out a digital camera. I told him to get the one just like mine (ours...it's Meg's too) only newer and better and less expensive... crazy how that works. They have an even newer digital elph that has over 7 megapixels. That's just plain crazy. Oh well. I'm still happy with mine (ours). I really don't have a whole lot to worry about from now until Monday morning. It will be quite nice. I should really figure out where the library is so I can get wireless on saturdays.

frisbee on the beach

oh man, the values and vocation course (which fulfills Dordt's Gen 300 requirement) is going to be a lot of reading. We got approx 9 billion sheets of handout reading for the course. Oh well, the instructor is extremely energetic and funny. I think it'll be alright. So anyway, we got to play some frisbee down by the beach. Five of us (CS students) just started playing with two guys who were already tossing one around. My brand new, bright green frisbee sat in the sand all day as we used the guys' bigger, nicer frisbee. Running on the beach is extremely tiring. I couldn't believe how quickly I got worn out. I'd say running on fine sand is about five times as tiring as running on solid ground. However, it is much easier to dive and that type of thing. Within about half an hour we had 18 people playing and had to split up into two separate games.

I'm still waiting to get some feedback from Ogilvy before I make my final decision between them and the Field Museum. It's a really hard decision. I need to send thank you cards to all the sites i interviewed at too. Argh! so much to do...

on that note, I'm going to go to some guys' apartment and play some cards for a while... if my beach-tired legs don't fall off on the way there.

At the CS office

right now I'm at the Chicago Semester office. The place is really nice. It's on the 12th floor of a building with a bank at the bottom... i think. There are classrooms, a lounge, a good sized lunchroom, the staff offices, a library, and a computer lab. This morning was the intro session for the Arts in the City course. I found that it's really hard to pay attention to class when instead of a wall to your right there's just a big window overlooking the city. I watched the window washers on their platform as they dripped suds down the windows. I think I should have gotten an internship with them. That would be awesome, yet insanely boring. At this point I still haven't settled on an internship.

I ordered my books from Amazon a few minutes ago. I always figure I can borrow other peoples books until mine come (good thing everyone's not like me). Last night I went to Target for the third night in a row. That place is getting really sickening... so many empty shelves. We found everything that we needed that target didn't have at Walgreens... except for a volleyball. Apparently they don't sell volleyballs anywhere in Chicago. I found a frisbee though. Later today I think a bunch of us are going to play some ultimate down at the beach.

They fed us sandwiches from potbelly for lunch today. I must admit, they are even better than the sandwiches I made for myself when I worked at Pizza Hut. They gave us breakfast this morning as well. I made of fool of myself and some friends this morning when I stepped off the subway at a stop four blocks before the one we should've gotten off at. I'm just glad there are people who aren't afraid to make fools of themselves so that I don't get left lost, alone, and confused at the Washington stop when I should be getting off at Monroe.

I think I will be working for CS one night a week. This morning Clinton (the guy in charge of the whole show) said that the first few people who talk to him will get to sort of supervise the office in the evenings. There's no way I'm going to pass up getting paid $6.50/hr to post on my blog (at least i'm pretty sure i can be working on stuff while i'm here). I've always thought some of the desk workstudy jobs at Dordt are ridiculous - now i will be doing the same thing! So it goes...

settled in

So I haven't written for a few days now... i wasn't sure where i should go to get a web connection. I am at the starbucks a few hundred feet from my apartment. Moving went much better than I anticipated. Rather than everyone carrying all their suitcases on the L we called a cab. I had the desk guy at the hotel call up the company and request a minivan cab. Nate, Lisa, Young, Lance, Sarah, and I all moved all our stuff from the hotel for just $8 + a tip. I rode along with all the luggage and everyone else just took the L and met us at the apartment. I am really liking the apartment. There is no air conditioning, but there won't be many more hot summer afternoons that I'll be there. Lake Michigan is three blocks away. We went swimming yesterday. Today we are going to go to Navy Pier and see what's down there. At some point we're going to get a volleyball, football, soccer ball, and frisbee to use down at the beach. Not that we're really lacking in excercise here. I, for one, have never walked so much so consistantly in my life. I really like how the public transportation works. You really never have more than a few blocks to walk to get anywhere in the town, but you always have to walk further than you do back home (ie to the driveway and then from the parking lot to the building). My battery is going down quickly and the girl across the table from me is occupying the plug in the wall with her powerbook, so i better post this and head back for a charge.
Rob

last night at the hotel

I think Blogger provides some sort of something for protection against spammers. I will have to look into it... I seem to be having a problem.

Today I had my last two interviews. They were both awesome opportunities as well... making my decision even more difficult. The Field Museum is an awesome place. I would love to work there and I would love that sort of projects. They are getting traveling exhibits for pompei and king tut soon. Unfortunately, a lot of work there right now is for a huge exhibit on evolution. It will be very amazing, but not everyone agrees with that whole idea, so I don't yet know if that would sit well with me... working on that and all.

My other interview was at Edelman, which is on the 64th floor of a building overlooking millenium park. Absolutely incredible view (the view out the back of the museum is also very impressive). The work I would be doing at Edelman is similar to what I would be doing at Ogilvy and EuroRSCG. Right now I'm leaning toward taking the job at Ogilvy more than Euro and Edelman though. The Field Museum is also in the running. I've pretty much narrowed it down to those two. I really want to hear back what they thought of me before I make a final decision, but the weekend is here and I don't know if that will happen. I told Judi (the internship coordinator for CS) that I would sleep on the decision. I think I have until Wednesday at the latest... since work starts on Thursday.

Tonight we found out what our "practicum groups" will be for the semester. I'm not entirely sure what all that entails, it's sorta like a third class... we'll meet once a week to discuss our internships and stuff. We had to go for supper with our group. We went to Boston Market. I thought that place was pretty good... and not too terrible expensive....Chicken, potatoes, corn, cornbread all for under $7. After supper we went to Second City comedy club. They have some amazing actors there. I wasn't a huge fan of most of the humor though. I think the "SC" of "SCTV" comes from second city... there have been a lot of big names there.

Sarah, Lisa, Nate, and I walked down to millenium park tonight to see what it's like at night... only it's kinda my first time checking it out at all. Security kicked us out at 11 though, so i didn't see a whole lot of it. There will be plenty of time.

Tomorrow we all have to move out of the hotel into apartments. I still have to get everything packed up tonight so all i have to do in the morning is bring all my stuff down to the ground level and get a cab. A bunch of us are going to pile our gear into a cab, then one or two will ride with the stuff and the others will take the L (el? still not sure how to spell that...maybe i should just say subway or train or CTA...whatever). Then we'll get settled into our new apartments and chill out until Tuesday when we will have orientation for our classes.

One more day of interviews

Tonight I will try to get to bed fairly early so that I can get be ready to go at 8:00 tomorrow morning. Another girl and I have to be at the Field Museum at the same time for interviews. My head is swimming right now. All for of my interviews so far are probably better than anything I imagined I would get. All of them have a wealth of pluses and minuses, but all are very interesting. The past two years the Field Museum has had designers from Dordt working as interns on the CS program. They both really enjoyed it. I'm keeping my mind as open as I can, but I don't see how it could possibly top the other options I have right now. We'll see how it goes. I'm kinda half hoping that I have no interest in the one later tomorrow because my decision will just be easier if I don't have six phenomenal options. We get into our little huddle groups every night to discuss our various options. It's very nice to hear what's going on for other people. It's especially interesting to hear the reaction of others who visited the same sites as me.

Meg packed me some cereal bars before I left. I was kinda like "umm, i don't know what i want food for yet, i'm going to be living in a hotel for a week" (that was in my head, not out loud). Well, anyone who appreciates me being alive today can thank Meg for that because when the morning is so packed..... yeah... you get the picture.... cereal bars are awesome, even if the boxes are kinda awkward in my backpack.

The CS staff put together a little church service earlier this evening. It was a really nice time for some songs and reflections. I've been kicking myself lately for not trying to get into the super nice apartments, because i know that if i'd wanted to be there i could be. The place where I'll be staying is a tiny hole in the wall...okay no...there are two holes in the wall which the beds fold out of. The kitchen is the living room is the bedroom is the study is the rec room is the dining room.....and then there's a ancient bathroom...good water pressure though. K, so anyway, back to the reflection time. In thinking about all of the homeless people in Chicago, I am so much more at peace with myself paying a little bit less and getting no more than what is needed. At this point I am only kicking myself for being selfish and greedy. Considering all the work and money that people are putting down so that my naive little self can be here, I have been incredibly blessed. Michelle (CS staff) mentioned at one point during the service that only 1% of the people in the world have a college education. I am not to afraid of being corny to say that I am getting one of the best educations of that 1%. so if i ever complain in this blog about my little apartment, don't be afriad to remind me of that. I am given to forgetting that sort of thing and focusing on the moment.

exhausted

Yesterday was insane. Non-stop from start to end... pretty much. two interviews and claiming an apartment. I think the biggest problem with the internship options is that I want all of them. Some more than others, but I was kinda thinking I would have one or two that i would immediately eliminate from the running. Two more tomorrow. Move in to apt on Saturday. Maybe I'll write more later. Right now is sleepy time.