Tuesday, April 11

What an amazing day! It started earlier than normal..about an hour earlier, which meant I was up at the same time the other girls were. I had to leave the apartment by 7:30 though, so I wasn't in their hair the whole time.

My day was going to be spent at McCormick place once again at a convention called Bio 2006, a worldwide Biotechnology trade show/conference thing. I met with Joan at work at 8 and took a big display case in a taxi van to McCormick place. We walked in and registered, complimentary coffees in hand, with no problems and set up our little science fair board thing for Easter Seals. We were around other non-profit organizations (Lupus foundation, diabetes, etc.) and were just looking to get interest from Bio companies interested in possibly partnering with Easter Seals. I got a chance to walk around the exhibit hall with all the tables and exhibits from all over the world: Holland, Spain, India, every state, almost every province, it was nuts. Everyone was there and wanted to showcase what they had been doing with biotechnology. Anything from stem stell research to genetically modified foods and animals, cures for cancer and AIDS and ways to communicate their findings to people across the world. AMAZING conference. I felt so dumb around all those smart scientists. So I walked around and got free stuff, chatted with a few people, but made myself look as smart as possible. I tried to look like I knew what I was doing.

I walked really slowly past the France display so that I could catch the language, and also really slowly past the Canadian displays so I could catch that wonderful accent again. There's something comforting about hearing the word "about" and "sorry" in Canadian.
After walking around and getting as much free booty as I could, I headed back to the ES display right outside of the main exhibit hall. It was then that I looked through a daily agenda and saw that former President Bill Clinton would be speaking around lunch time! In the hall right next to our display! Yes, Bill Clinton!

Joan and I were elated. I'd never really heard him speak before (just those resounding words "I did not have sexual relations with this woman") so I was very interested in what he would say about globalization and the biotech community! (Mind you, going through my head during a lot of his speech was the whole Monica situation and "how could this man be so dirty and immoral when he's so smart?!") Anyway, I took notes on what he had to say, which was very well presented, I might add. He was an amazing speaker. He rarely looked down at a paper and even shared personal stories with us. It was like listening to a friend up there.

He was about 200 meters/metres away from where we were standing so I didn't really see his face, but I could see his head and his movements. He was also up on three big screens so us back people could see him. So that was my encounter with president Clinton. That story will be told for generations to come! :)

Monday, April 10

Monday was a day filled with hustle and bustle. First of all, I was "violated" on the train and that kind of made me mad all day, but at work I had letters to write, descriptions to write, pictures to get, emails to reply, and a very special delivery to make.

At around 12:45, Kristen came to my cubicle and had a special project for me to get to. My job was to take a beta video to a video company to get remade into mpeg format. No problem. THEN, I had to get the video to a guy with the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper by 2:15. I had to quick get on this because we knew it would take at least 25 minutes for the movie to be finished. I took the train to the video place, and enjoyed the sun as I waited for them to finish. I got out of there at around 2, and had only 15 minutes to get to the Times headquarters!

I quick caught a cab (just like in the movies!) and rushed over to the Chicago Sun Times to make the delivery! I went through security and talked on the phone to the reporter before giving him the cd, but I made the delivery with a couple of minutes to spare. I walked the mile back to the office in the beautiful sunny weather and then worked on the letters and stuff the rest of the afternoon. Not just an ordinary day for me!

That night I went to Solheim to work out in the stuffy weight room there and run on the rubber-over-concrete flooring that they have there. Reminds me of my high school gym floor! I'd much rather run outside, but when it's dark, it's my best option.
I did run past a movie set to get to Solheim. There were fire trucks and police cars so I just thought it was a fire alarm or something like that, but when I got to the gym, Becca mentioned that it was a movie set! Sweet!

Sunday, April 9

I ran a lot on Sunday. The lakeshore seemed to be calling my name! The weather was gorgeous, the lake was calm, the sun was out, I ran in shorts outside for probably the first time this year.
So I ran for about an hour, and it felt SO GOOD!
After running I showered and got ready to usher again for Blue Man Group. This time it was with a different group of people, so it was the first time they'd seen the show. We got way better seats than before (we were at the back in bar stools on Friday) and this time we were right behind the last seat of ponchos...about 6 rows from the front! The blue men came past us many times and even stood on Kyle's chair above him as he looked over the audience. And yes, the paint on their heads is wet paint! Tickets are pretty expensive for that show, so saving 40-60 bucks by just ushering and cleaning up after was a pretty sweet deal for us.

After the show, Pam helped me tone down the blondness of my hair by putting a darker color in. I like it better now, and my roots aren't so bad. I'm blonde, but not that blonde.

Sorry if you're reading my page for the first time. I blog about anything and everything...including my hair color..it's my journal!

Saturday, April 8

Sleep. Answer phone. Sleep. Shop for top had with Chris. Bought nothing. Out for Pizza with friends. blah blah blah.......BULLS GAME!!!!!!

I love going to huge colliseums and centers like this. We were at the United Center, and all of us Chicago Semester people kind of sat in the same area....in the highest, last row of the house. I mean, we could seriously touch the ceiling. No one was behind us either. And our tickets were still worth 40 bucks! horrible! It was all because of Allen Iverson. What a guy. He's the one we all paid ten extra dollars for compared to any other night...
The bulls got whipped by the 76ers. The only reason we know is because Pam and I moved up about 10 rows so that we could actually see. The last row is so dark! So we stole some empty seats farther down and shmoozed with some kids basketball team. I'm still amazed that no matter how young some black kids are, they can still dance better than I can. It's fun watching all the other entertainment at a game like this. The "Luvabulls" and the "Matadors" and the tumbling team. I didn't know it, but I saw three really big guys before the game having a smoke by a door, and I said to the girls " I have to get my picture with them" so I did, and they ended up to be three of the Matadors! The guys that had the dance off with the cheerleaders- "Luvabulls" during half-time. It was cool. They were really nice guys too and were alright with having their picture taken with me.

I love watching professional sports. Okay, probably not football, but basketball games are awesome. Remember that time when we had court side tickets, Nathan? What a dream come true! The mascot for the bulls is a lot better than the grizz though. But nothing will compare to the moments of elation we felt when getting Shareef's autograph or seeing Mike Bibby and Michael Dickerson and all those guys so close to us. There was a guy on the Grizzlies named Othella Harrington...he plays for the bulls right now! Cool hey? and we saw him in Vancouver!

Anyway, Allen Iverson, AI, the answer, etc. had some sweet shoes on. And he has skinny legs. But it was cool to see him "in person." He looks small compared to the other guys out there...7 footers and stacked.

Can't get enough basketball. or volleyball.

Friday, April 7

I do enjoy Fridays. It seems everyone is a little more casual, and that's not just their clothes...some people majorly stress out on Fridays, like one of my bosses, but usually people are just ready to let loose over the weekend. It was a good day to get sponsorships for my 10k in a few weeks. I needed 50 bucks to get free registration, and I ended up with 60!
We had an interesting conversation at lunch about different religions. Karen, the woman with red hair (can't remember her name), Karyn, Jan, and I talked about Protestants vs Catholics and Easter and confession and eating meat over lent and stuff like that. Very interesting to hear the difference in religious practice and how we all view our faiths, as different as they seem. We all believe in the same God, but how we acknowledge and worship and relate and express and how often we express our faiths is so different.It's neat to get a different perspective compared to at Dordt, where it's a very universal thing. One thing I want more of this semester is to be challenged a little more in my faith..have to defend it. Ang said one night that this is the first time she hasn't been commended for her faith. She's been questioned and razzed a little bit around her work because she doesn't go out and party on weekends, especially when it was her birthday. She's felt pressure about it. However, she's also at an accounting firm and I'm at a non-profit organization that started as a Christian-based organizaton. I know one guy who goes to the alliance church and I think my supervisor goes to church, too. No matter what church people go to, or if they go at all, I work with people with very good morals and they can tell right from wrong and we work for the common good of Easter Seals but the common good of the people that Easter Seals helps. Great place to work.

I was just excited all day for Blue Man Group that night. We were ushering so that we could watch the show for free. It was very very exciting and pleasing to the eye with all the different colors and lights and things that fall from the ceiling. I'd totally go again, and I did on Sunday!
The show was amazing. I bet a lot of work goes into a show like that, even just thinking up the ideas...the guys probably just sit in a circle and say "hey I'd like to see a sea of toilet paper around the theatre, we should do that with black lights so that it glows." Yep, and we ushers cleaned up that toilet paper. It was more like strong paper towel but it was so cool to see.

On top of the mindless stuff in the show, there's also elements of educational content as well. I was impressed with that for sure. It almost gives the show a purpose. A social purpose.

We trashed our minds that night by watching Office Space upstairs with the guys. Hey, it kept us from getting trashed on alcohol down at the bars next door...can you argue?

Thursday, April 6

Have you ever been so tired that everything gets out of focus and things start squiggling and you have to constantly fidgit to stay awake? Picture me in a meeting with 13 other people and doing the old "head bob." I felt horrible and I knew when I was doing it, but I really couldn't help it!
The whole day was kind of like that, but it went fast after I got out of that meeting at 12:30.
I think I was tired because I didn't drink coffee that morning. I've been trying to cut down on that a bit because my Canada weekend was FULL of coffee...and donuts..and Tim Hortons. Anyway, I had to cave in and make a coffee to keep awake.

Thursday afternoon I got more work assignments :) and updated more spreadsheets, filed, edited, all that stuff. It was a good day, went very fast after I had my coffee!

Thursday night from 6-9pm were the neighborhood presentations from every group. We had some presentations, then a good home cooked southern meal (aka, put newspapers down on the tables so that it soaks up the grease), then more presentations.

People had fashion shows, powerpoint, skits, movies, you name it and we had it even down to the "chinaman's hat" and a P. Diddy picture from when he visited the neighborhood of Austin. Some groups went all out, and then some just did the basics--I think our group was the most boring, but we had all the required elements, no extra "pieces of flare" or anything...just the bare minimum. We all knew that we were getting an A anyway. Our group leader wasn't even there. hah!

Wednesday, April 5

Nashville played the blackhawks on Wednesday night. I was sad that I didn't go because Dan Hamhuis scored a goal that night!!
Wednesday was a looong day. I was go, go, go from 7am until 10 at night. No breaks, not even for supper really. We had class, and I don't remember much of what we talked about. We talked about the Seldoms, the contemporary dance group we watched the week before in Arts class. We didn't have practicum group because we didn't have much more to talk about for our presentation Thursday night anyway. We all knew our parts and what we had to research. No biggie.
Again I did my work at the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. I really like the casual atmosphere. I work closely with Cynthia, a cute Lutheran woman with short brown hair and a big smile. She reminds me of Leanne Reedyk a little bit. She's cool. So we organized a bit for Bike the Drive in May, that's what I'd be planning if I had actually done an internship there, and I also did some inventory of some signs they had in storage. Cynthia mentioned that she'd heard of Dordt before, and she thinks her school might have played Dordt in basketball or something in the same division. She's from around here, and we talk about all the cool stuff I could do when I'm here.

The Glass Menagerie:
"Try? Then you will succeed" the mother wants to share her wise life experience with her kids, but they really had to learn it themselves. She's a hypocrite.
I really liked the set design, simple, modern.
The play was really good, but I tried to focus too hard on staying awake and didn't catch everything. I really like plays, but I'd rather have them makle me feel good at the end and not make me think too hard. Maybe it was just the night that I went. I'm sureI would like it better if I saw it again and was able to follow everything.
I do remember the relationship between Laura and Jim being painful to watch. They skipped around so many things before she started really talking to him. And we knew all those things ahead of time. Their acting together was really great.
Oh yah, and I've seen 2 Zuidhofs in less than a week! Heather at redeemer and Joel at the Glass Menagerie! Weird.

Monday and Tuesday April 3, 4

My Cubicle at work

Back in high school, when that good old wireless internet was knocked off it's satellite line and we didn't have internet, it wasn't such a huge deal. All we needed those computers for was keyboarding class and typing out reports/essays.
I realized on Monday that my job almost totally depends on the internet, and what do I do at work without the internet?!? No emails can be sent, no online programs, no extranet, etc. It was like we were cut off from the rest of the world.

I did have something to do all morning. I finished up my media kits and had those sent out to the various publications that could run our new Angel of Change campaign. The media kit included a press release, tv and radio PSAs, information on how to be an Angel of Change, and feathers--just to be cute.
We hope we get a lot of press coverage for this campaign. I put in a lot of work on those kits, but they were good!

Kristen was out on Monday and Tuesday, so I did mainly filing on an internet program and editing the submissions we get for the "Tell us about your Angel" and putting them online. Lots of editing on Monday since the internet was out until about 3pm.

Monday night I don't remember what I did. Probably work out at Solheim. And I probably sweat a lot since that place is so warm and sticky. There's a pool there and it creates SO MUCH humidity everywhere. It's hard to run in the weight room because the ceiling is so low, too. Oh well, it's better than having to run in the rain!

To Ontario: March 29, April 1, 2

Friday:

Janelle Vdh, Becca O, Pam, and I met at the Metra station early on Friday afternoon to set off for Canada. But first we had to get out of the city to a suburb and pick up Becca's car. The train ride was fun, a lot more fun than the red line every morning. It reminded me of the sweet VIA rail that we took to Terrace a few times back home. I remembered I forgot my birth certificates for crossing the border so I was a bit worried about getting into Canada. I find that they are always a bit leary of letting in Canadian kids who go to college in the states.
We got to the Dune Park train station at around dark, and Becca handed Janelle (vanderhoek) the keys to load up her stuff while we all went to the bathroom. Well, Janelle (again, not me) started the car and was going to bring it around to pick us up by the front of the station. Something crazy happened and once the car was put into reverse, it revved and slammed into the white acura that was parked behind Becca's car. Hit it so hard that when I came out, the white car was purched on the top of the concrete divider, back wheels on the ground, front wheels on the divider! (and the back bumper was crunched in. And I missed the hit!

It took about an hour to verify with the sheriff all the details and get on the road. He left a paper with all the details for the poor driver of the white care. We just didn't want to be hunted down at the border later on for not leaving a note on the white car!

No trouble getting into Canada...I had my SIN card, Health Card, Zellers card, all that is Canadian so it was all good.

Saturday:

After arriving at Tim Hortons (a few of them!) and dropping off Janelle at a truck stop where she met her sister, Pam and I met up with Chad at a London Tim Hortons and we slept at Pam's house. We ate brunch there and lazed around for a bit and I went for a run. Then Chad and I went to Walmart and Redeemer to say hi to people.
Saturday night Chad and I went to Big Bucks in Burlington, waited nearly 2 hours in line to get in, and tried our best at dancing inside on the two levels of dance floor! It was a good time. I didn't have to worry about not being 21, I could go out again. I enjoyed it, despite the extremely warm temperature in the bar.

Sunday:

Sleep. Worship. Peanut butter. Tim Hortons. Met Pam. Drove. Border. No birth certificate. No questions. (Cute guy). Train. Rain. Bed.

Not much to the day.