3rd week

So, it's 3rd week here and I'm still not feeling any significant amount of stress about getting my work done. I'm not sure how well I'm doing in my classes, but I'm usually done with my work really early and I feel like I understand what I'm reading. We haven't turned in anything major or taken any huge tests yet, but so far so good. I'm usually in bed by 11 or midnight... something my friends are really jealous of.

My Chinese Religion class is really interesting and I'm considering taking Chinese next year instead of doing Spanish next term. I think it might upset mom, but I have all the tools I need to learn Spanish at home and I really want to take advantage of this opportunity. I think it'd be really challenging. Also, to fulfill my language requirement for it I'd have to take more than a year of it as opposed to the one semester of Spanish I'd have to take, nevertheless I'm considering it. (But still really intimidated by the whole idea.)

My Cinema and Media Studies class is really interesting. The prof is clearly an expert in the field and loves what she does. We screen movies on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So far we've watched Broken Blossoms, Stagecoach, and Now Voyager. We also listened to The War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which has a really interesting back story... think hysteria on a massive scale because people thought the program about aliens taking over Earth was real, what sillies. Tonight we're watching Citizen Kane and I'm pretty excited for it.

There's a lot less to say about my psych class. It's lecture based and a tad boring. We're working with very elementary concepts right now and we get a lot of busy work assignments, but we have a big test next Wednesday, so we'll see how that goes.

Anyway, all in all everything at Carleton is great. My stint with influenza really didn't hinder my work, it was actually nice to take a week off from the dining hall though. That place has taken so many turns for the worst. The supervisors have lost a lot of points in all of the chefs, student managers, and student workers' books. The chefs and the rest of the staff are still great. Maybe I'll take some of my spare time to call corporate on the supervisors :). Haha.

I went to a hockey game last weekend and I went ice skating out on the bald spot yesterday. I watched the inauguration during my CAMS class, our teacher ended up getting really caught up in the excitement and just let the class go after she took a picture of us (so we'd remember where we were during this moment in history). Silly, Carol.

It's Friday Eve guys!!!! :) !!!

A chapter

This week's work involved a group of 10 volunteers from Fairfield college working on a home all week. The workscope involved but was not limited to: installing bamboo flooring, ceramic tiles, door trim, doors, window trim, thresholds, subflooring, and linoleum flooring. I had some very dedicated volunteers, and some house captain support which made my job easier. The job this week was delegation, and it really began to wear on my mind. I would get really anxious at night and waking up about what jobs could be done next.

But the result of that brain strain was pretty miraculous, we got so much done and the volunteers and I got pretty close. We all went out for Felipe's burritos which are like Chipotle's and margaritas. It was a lot of fun hanging out with new faces and hearing how a few of them were seriously considering joining Americorps with Rebuilding Together New Orleans next year. They were an idealistic bunch, and they didn't mind talking about it with me. They are a Jesuit college so they dont swear. Margaritas and theology ended up being a pretty good mixture and I made a few facebook friends. After Felipe's, my house captain support drove me to a coffee shop where I could read Stones of Summer then we went home. I found out through texting that the Fairfielders went to Bourbon street, those rascals, them.

Yesterday was an exceptional day, actually one of my favorite all time. I went for a walk at 7 that morning and saw the Mississippi all fogged over, nature dancing in the humid and warm air, and I just sat overlooking the river for about a half hour. I walked by the site of a Rebuilding Together party that was scheduled for that night, I thought, I hope there's no karaoke machine. Like some logical proof in my brain, karaoke plus me equals destiny. Inescapable. And of course the night rolls around and the party gets started, crescendos and begins to die down at about ten or so, when I finally strike gold in the CD booklet and find the Wallflowers' One Headlight. Let's just say me and my buddy Darren have stage presence... and I'm a world class singer. I got complements all night, no kidding, from people I knew and didn't know. Coincidentally this party venue is right across the street from Old Point Bar, the one where I showed some people some dance steps.

After the party, we walked back to the cars, and Amanda, the only person in RT who is under 21, drove us to Mimi's and we had a two hour dance party to some unbelievably bassy jams. I got a text at 4:22pm today from Darren.
"That was awesome," he said, "all of it."
"Yes, it was the lost kids on parade outside city limits and the universe was watching," I said.
"But if only they could run faster, stretch their souls farther-but, alas, Sunday's dawn. And so it begins, their venture back towards the refrain." Darren said.
"I think you're a poet, too" I said.

Nope. Definitely not a door.

You know that old joke, "When is a door not a door?" I saw this today.


....and does this belong to anyone? It looks great on our chair, but we really should return it to it's rightful owner.


OK, you can have your blog back now. I'm done flooding it for today. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Random October photos

Pete and I were in Sandwich, Illinois in October. We witnessed what appeared to be some kind of ritual. Large groups of celebrants moved around an arena in coordinated patterns, forming mysterious symbols. Each tribe was clad in its own unique style of traditional clothing. Some of the participants played musical instruments, while others waved ceremonial flags in coordination with the music. The tribe leaders stood in front on elevated platforms and waved their hands in the air. Our favorite tribe was this purple one.


The collaborative sculpture pictured below is completely unrelated to the previous photo. Visitors to an ordinary office cubicle could add something to the piece if they felt inspired, using a pile of report binders as their medium. Some boldly dared to accentuate the piece with binder clips and stickers. The sculpture's destruction shortly after this photo shoot was a great loss to Chicago's art community.

Random September photos

Here's a giant red ball that appeared near work in September. It had been roaming the city for awhile when it decided to rest for a day on LaSalle Street.



Another week in September, my dad and I went to a class about steam tractors. Many of these monsters are over 100 years old. They run just like old train locomotives. Most of the tractor is a giant water tank with a separate chamber for a fire. You fill the tractor with water, keep shoveling in fuel such as coal or wood to boil the water, and use the steam power to plow fields, power a sawmill, or demolish roads. (It's way more complicated than that, but the instructors made it look easy.) They actually let us drive these working pieces of history. The instructors and other volunteers own and maintain most of these machines themselves. They were incredibly generous with their time and expertise. Here's me driving one - I don't think my fingers are supposed to be over that gear.


And this is another tractor in action.

Woke up early... and contemplated the holidays

So, it's 10:32am central time and it is one of the few times in the last month that I have woken up before noon.  Sleeping over half the daylight away is not something that I consider quality use of my time, but I believe that I owe my nocturnal life recently to the holiday season.  I cannot remember a christmas break where I crawled through the finish line so exhausted as this one.  The two weeks leading up to Christmas was the busiest part of the year at the bar for Ruby Tuesday.  My hours were set to noon to "till the resturant began to empty" shifts that ended up being about nine and a half hours every friday, saturday and sunday.  Constantly running around getting people their booze fix or feeding them in a mad frenzy so they can refuel and return to shopping ended up wearing on me in the long haul  (Not to mention my desire to dabble in the festivities myself after I finished a shift).  I was wondering how I was going to find a way to slow down and relax naturally once the new year was over, but oddly enough my body found a way to shut me down completey.  Over the last four days I have had a whirlwind of mouth trauma that left me with a wisdom tooth extraction followed up with a root canal - both done before I was scheduled to work.  Now I have had my share of dental work growing up, but these last four days has redifined my threshold for oral pain.  Not to mention my tolerance for pain medecation.  I don't plan on making a habit out of codiene but that crap does the job of eliminating pain for a several hours as well as make you feel that your riding a magic carpet wherever you go...  the only downside is that you can pass out into an intense drooling sleep nearly instantly once you sit down.  So, hopefully the restless nights of sleep dreaming of dancing, circling flowers with faces all laughing at me are over.

Now why am I sharing all of this owl, hallucinogenic coma-like sleep past.  Well, since I have had this abrupt halt in my recent routine I finally have a chance to reflect on the better side of the season.  It was very warming to see a lot of the family during the Christmastime.  It's nice to know that Grandpa and Grandma are still so strong.  Did anyone else see Grandma trucking herself around on missions to be a part of the whole party?  And I still think Grandpa is tough enough to kick the crap outta me...  Plus, I love to watch Uncle Matt (with his Im Stressed t-shirt on) and Aunt Zuly chasing around and rearing their growing family.  Then seeing uncle Dan and his family come down from Traverse City for even just a couple of days puts a huge damn smile on my face (I think Dan and Laura are gonna have their hands full with all the help Molly and Maggie are going to need beating young gentlemen off with a broom).  I guess after all the holiday craziness is over going to Hahn houses for something as simple as a Wayne's pizza nite and seeing family interact so well helps me to be confident that one day, if I'm fortunate, I will be able to raise a family as well.    

Sorry for all the wind and happy healthy toothful days to all yall,

Charlie

Holiday Pictures

Hi Family,

Here is a collection of Holiday photos. I utilized the G1 Google phone (running the Android OS) to capture these miracles.

From top to bottom: Tina and Tony in my Urbana apartment, Tony in Urbana apartment, Dan, Jim and Tony at 536, Chicago from the Train Station on Christmas Eve, and Matt and Tony in Urbana.

I love you all,

Jim

Uncle Dan's Visit

It was really nice seeing Uncle Dan and family when he came to town. I invited him to join our blog. I would also like to extend an invitation to other Hahns who would like to write on this blog - just give me an email address.

So, does anybody have pictures they want to share from the holidays? I took none.