sunday christian

Seems like everything is flying by, and I hardly know how things went by so fast.

I think I have been so concerned with growing up lately that I've forgotten that I still exist right here, right now. I've been so concerned with the future that I have forgotten how very real God is in this very second. I've been so concerned with making new relationships that I've forgotten the most important one.

That probably explains why I've been grumpy lately. Tends to happen when I ignore God.

I'm starting to learn what it means to not just be a Sunday Christian. At Spring Arbor, it was like Sunday every day... I was surrounded by Christians; pretty much everybody made good decisions (for the most part), I was free to explore my faith as the major characteristic of my life, mostly because everyone else was doing the same thing.

When I first got here, to Chicago, I had to rely on God a lot because He was all I had. Now that I am more accustomed to things (and now that I am freaking out about the future), I am less concerned with exploring my faith and growing with God. Sunday is once a week, for an hour or two on one particular day. Not good.

It's sometimes hard to recall that God made a sacrifice so that we could live like life is amazing and a miracle every day. Like forgiveness is real. Like love is true and perfect. It's especially hard to recall this if I am being a Sunday Christian.

I guess I just need to put more effort into it. Relationships are hard work, right? I am realizing this with my relationship with God more than with anyone else. Totally draining, in a good way.

just call me grumpelstiltson

I feel cranky.

Probably a variety of reasons, a 12 hour day among them.

Really, there's just a couple of people I would like to punch in the nose. I'm going to avoid that, because I'm pretty sure that's not what Jesus would want, but the feeling is still there. Guess I'm still human after all.

Blargh. Not a fan of the fact that I have ridiculous papers/reading to do by next Monday.

And basically this whole post was pointless, other than the fact that I needed an outlet for my emotions.

Okay thanks for stopping by. Stay classy, San Diego.

this is me, attempting to harness my inner optimist

Okay. This is to make up for the last post that I made, like, fifteen seconds ago.

Things I love:

-Jesus
-Easter
-The fact that it's warm enough to drink pink lemonade again
-my shiny new mug that I made
-seeing my family
-wireless internets
-my iPod charger (it has returned to me!)
-driving my car
-it's a beautiful day outside
-mmmm regular pizza
-I remembered my stuff for social work
-I felt kinda motivated for a while
-Jesus!
-tomorrow all the Easter candy will be half price
-only a month until graduation!
-only a month until I see my friends!
-my awesome new haircut
-the fact that I have 3/4 journals done for last week
-Journey makes me not stop believin'

Okay, so I don't feel fabulous still, but at least I know that there are good things out there still. Gives me confidence that I won't turn into a bitter old hag completely.

this is me, being negative

Things I currently hate:

-school
-growing to-do list that is sitting next to me
-school
-my current laziness
-school
-journals
-school
-the fact that there is STILL a month left before graduation
-school
-the beautiful weather outdoors (makes me not want to be inside)
-school
-the fact that I am sitting here blogging instead of being productive
-the fact that it's Easter and I'm not being thankful
-switching time zones
-SCHOOL
-the fact that I have to ride the train back and there are no outlets for me to plug my computer into (South Shore = old school)
-my own bitterness
-and, of course, SCHOOL.

/end rant.

Okay, I suck at this game

Blogging = more effort than I originally thought.

I forgot about my blog for a while.

And now I'm just making up excuses.

So the past month has been pretty good. I think I finally got over the adjustment period, so I'm over the I love/I hate everything about Chicago. I've just accepted it for what it is.

Cool things that I've seen in the past month:
Jersey Boys
Rent
Our Town (starring David Schwimmer, aka Ross from Friends!)
A kitten on the El
Representatives from a mortgage lending company cowering in fear
Blue Man Group
Sunrise on Lake Michigan
Obama's Chicago church, Trinity UCC
God working in big ways

Only a month left, hopefully I'll have more stories to tell!

just a quick moment for a post

A ranking of things going on in my life:

Work: about an 8. Lots of phone call making, which I hate, but everything else is good.

Apt: about a 7. I like everyone here, but sometimes I miss the peace and quiet. And by sometimes I mean a lot.

Public Transportation: about a 2. Good: saving the earth, I don't have to drive. Bad: if I have one more late bus/train episode, I'm probably going to freak out. Seriously, closing the downtown red line at NINE PM is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of, short of that Boogeyman movie I saw a couple years ago.

School: about a 4. Lots of homework that I am not getting done.

Adulthood: about a 7. Made a budget yesterday and I felt old, but turns out I'll probably be able to survive this semester. On the other hand, I HATE waking up in the morning.

Future: about an 8. I still don't know what I am going to do, but it appears I have plenty of options.

God: about a 9. Relating to the peace and quiet, it's hard to find, but when I find it, it's phenomenal. I'm really learning how to depend on God this semester, mostly because He's always around for me to depend on.

Mmk, I think that's about it.
Miss you and love you all.

deep thoughts on a gray Tuesday

Ugh, I felt like such an adult today. I went to meetings, worked my required hours, rode the bus home, went to the post office, went to the library, came home, made dinner, etc.

Lame.

Not gonna lie, I really miss the days of goofing off until two in the morning. Right now, it's not even 9:30 and I'm tired.

Lame sauce.

Not really much new to report. I am really ready to see my friends from back home when they come up in a couple weeks, but I am enjoying the friendships that I have and am making now. I am learning a lot, and I feel like I am being trusted with a lot, which is good. God and I are getting quite a bit of a talk time in... I spend two hours on the bus a day, and sometimes there is nothing to do but pray because I can't handle doing anything else when I am on the bus (believe me, I'm taking advantage of it). Overall, I know this is where I am supposed to be, but at the same time, it's still hard to be here.

I've been checking out Paul a lot recently, and I feel like he and I relate really well on this subject in Philippians. He talks about how he knows he is where he is supposed to be, but he also knows that he wants to be with Christ. I pretty much feel the same... I'm supposed to be here, but it's not easy, and I sometimes wish I was elsewhere.

Anyway, I don't want to be a mood killer, this is just what is on my mind. I hope to update everyone with pictures and such soon... sorry I suck at taking pictures! Going to the aquarium tomorrow, should be good!

an odd sense of stability

So this is just a quick catch-you-up before I go to bed. I have this silly thing called "work" tomorrow morning. Bah.

I just realized today that this is the longest I have ever been in a single place. Sound strange? Let me explain.

Everywhere else that I've ever lived, I eventually had to leave to get groceries, see a movie, whatever. I have stayed IN the city of Chicago for three weeks now. I have not traveled to the burbs even... I have been in the same place for three weeks, and yet every day when I ride the bus it feels like I am passing through a dozen different countries. It's a strange sense of stability.

In other news, I spent the majority of my weekend exploring some of the things that just sound glorious to me. I went to the Chicago History Museum and learned about the El, the Great Fire, the World's Fair, and the Stockyards... it was really interesting, mostly because I'm a nerd, but also because history is cool. I also went to the Art Institute and spent hours looking at VanGogh, Renoir, Monet, Seraut, El Greco, O'Keefe, and other artists. I spent about an hour looking for American Gothic, and then I found a plaque about the size of a dollar bill that said it was on loan to some place in Iowa. I was mildly irritated and also slightly glad to find out that I was not going blind/crazy.

I also got a library card. Make fun of me if you will, but the downtown library is probably the most miraculous thing I've seen in years. It's so... pretty....

(again, I'm a nerd)

On Saturday I ran around town with my friend Autumn who goes to Moody. It was pretty excellent... we went to a photography exhibit at Colombia College about women in the Congo; it was incredibly moving. Then we wandered around and saw ice sculptures and the Cultural Center. There was some crazy art there and beautiful domed ceilings made of Tiffany glass. After we left, I tried Argo Tea for the first time (yum) and found out about a coffee place that will give you free coffee on Friday if you wear an orange shirt.

After that I hung out with the lovely Erin and we had ourselves a Valentine's Day date at a Chicago pizza place downtown. While we waited for our table (over an hour!) we went to Trader Joe's and explored. Very cool place, I must say. Then we enjoyed delicious deep dish... if that's not love, I don't know what is!

Today I did homework pretty much all day, but that's what I get for procrastinating... whoopsie.

More eventually, assuming my internet holds out! Happy Valentine's Day!

the economy... it's so depressing...

I hope you all caught the humor of my title. If not, you're in too deep.

I know the economy has been something that has been plastered all over the news, but I feel like I've seen the effects of the economy all over everything lately. My internship is with a housing agency, and over the past year in our part of the city, foreclosures have increased by over 1,000. That doesn't include the people who have missed just a couple payments, people who have lost their jobs, etc. You can literally walk up and down the streets and see for sale signs and vacant, boarded up houses.

Not only that, but you can see massive amounts of homeless people. My heart wrenches every time I see a homeless person, and I want to buy them coffee, talk with them, and then invite them home so they have a dry place to sleep. I know that this is not feasible for a variety of reasons, but I feel so helpless because I don't even know what resources to point someone to. I know that many of these people struggle with mental illness, or they have families, or whatever, and I have no clue what is even in the area to help them. Curse my social work instinct; it kind of makes me want to be back in Jackson so that I know how to help people. My worst fear is that I will become apathetic towards these people. I can't imagine how awful it would be to beg, first of all, and then to have people ignore you on top of that is even worse. It's dehumanizing. I don't want to be that dehumanizer, and I'm pretty certain that is not what Christ wants either.

Seeing all of this, though, does make me long for Christ more in my heart. I want to be more like him, and living here in the city makes me wonder even more how I can do that. I've been stuck in James, which tells me that if I ask for wisdom from God, He will grant it if I do not doubt. It's so easy to be distracted by any number of things here in the city, and sitting down and listening for wisdom from God is not easy. As my friend Erin reminded me the other day, the waves are still there even when the ice seems to be covering them up... you just have to listen closely.

More soon... until then, peace.

week three begins...

Bits of knowledge to pass on about the Windy City:

1. Mostly English speaking people ride the El. Mostly non-English speaking people ride the bus.
2. Politics here are split: you either love your alderman or you hate him (Chicago is split up into "wards"... aldermans are their representatives). Slightly more people tend to love their alderman, it seems, because I don't remember the last alderman I heard about who had been in office for less than twenty years.
3. Being aware of your surroundings is key. Otherwise, you go south three blocks when you were supposed to go north, and you end up walking nine blocks instead of three.
4. No, your waiter is not always sober.
5. Yes, your bus driver is yelling out the stops because the thing that tells you the stops is broken.
6. Yes, this is a problem if you are deaf.
7. If you see shoes tied together and thrown over a telephone line, run the other direction... you are in gang territory.
8. There are tunnels under Lakeshore Drive that will take you to the beach. They are creepy.
9. Navy Pier is beautiful at sunset.
10. Visit the Crystal Gardens at Navy Pier and watch the crazy water fountains... they're fun.

Things have been good... it's been a full week since I've posted, so sorry about the wait (all two adoring fans that read this, haha). I have been adventuring a lot, and by adventuring, I mean working at my internship and commuting ridiculus amounts. Taking 18 credits was probably a poor life choice, but I'm sure that I'll learn plenty from it (like don't overbook, and don't give the elderly your cell phone number). Overall, I'm having a great time.

And no, I have not been mugged/beaten/raped/swindled/paid to make this statement.

Missing you from Chicago - Love, Katie

On culture and ice cream

There's a new experience every day here in Chicago! Yesterday (Sunday) I went with some CS friends to the Chinese New Year celebration in Chinatown. I must say, it is a bit of a culture shock, going from my small town parade to a big city parade. Normally, the parade in my home town is done in less than half an hour. People stand and walk along the main street from the old firehouse to about the funeral home (probably less than a quarter mile), and watch kids on bikes and tractors go by. This parade had three high school marching bands, dozens of floats, people dressed in dragon costumes, dignitaries and politicians, and even dancers. We stood outside for about two hours - one while we were waiting for the parade to happen and another while the parade actually happened. There were hundreds of people there (probably more than that, but it's hard for me to tell), bunched into a couple of city blocks. And despite the fact that we ended up like popsicles, frozen in the city streets, a good time was had by all.

In one of my classes today, we talked a little bit about Chinatown culture. Apparently, the original Chicago Chinatown was located more north on VanBuren. Chinatown has mostly been inhabited by poor Chinese from a certain area of China, and became famous for its chop suey, which was Americanized to make it more marketable to the Chicago people. I also found out that many of the people who moved to Chinatown later were unable to speak to the original inhabitants - they came from a different part of China and didn't speak the same language. In fact, many of them could only communicate using English!

I just had to throw this picture in... Yes, there were Irish men in kilts with bagpipes playing at the Chinese New Year celebration. Why? I have yet to figure it out.

In other news, I think I'm starting to finally grasp the idea that I am living in Chicago. I'm starting to meet people who live in the city - we went to a Superbowl party at a friend of a friend's apartment, which was a lot of fun (except for the part where the Cardinals lost, sad day), and today one of my roommates and I went out on an ice cream run. We walked all through Uptown after dark without getting mugged... go us! Sadly, we had to walk half a mile for good ice cream, but that's because we were picky and the stores were crowded. Meh.

Settled? Well, at least a little.

I hope I don't end up being one of those bloggers who posts every detail of their every day on the internet. But I guess I haven't posted for a couple days, so I feel better about life.

I started my internship... it's going really great. I've been amazed at how many social work skills I have used so far, two days into it. I've been able to meet some amazing people and have really enjoyed getting to know the people I'll be working with. Not only that, but I found a place that will serve me coffee for 35 cents a cup, with free refills for as long as I am there. Score one for me.

Yesterday we went to see Improvised Shakespeare at the IO Theater near Wrigley Field. Holy cow was that funny! Basically, they ask someone from the audience to give them a title to work from, and these six or seven men perform an improvised play, in the style and wording of Shakespeare. Ours was "Rod has a Bad Day." Several characters were Scottish and sounded suspiciously like something one would find on a McDonald's menu. It was a lot of fun and a great way to end orientation.

And today we moved into our apartment! My parents came up and helped bring all of my stuff, and after many hours of unpacking and attempting to organize, I am pretty much settled, at least as far as I can be. Since then I've just been hanging out with the roomies that are here. Not only that, but we discovered that the Mexican place down the street is AWESOME. Best burrito ever.

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year, so I'll be sure to post on that. We're going to a giant parade in Chinatown, and I am looking forward to seeing all the craziness.

Fun times!

living and love (in the form of chocolate)

I signed my lease today and got a sneak preview of my apartment! It's huge and awesome, and I am very excited to live there. It is a three bedroom, two bath, fully stocked and furnished apartment that makes me very happy every time I think about it :) Be jealous, very jealous. Plus, it's down the street from one of Al Capone's old hang outs, which makes me feel pretty gangster. I want to wear a pinstripe suit, sit in a dark corner, and order a big tall glass of milk just for kicks.

In other adventures, I went with a couple of friends to the Ghirardelli chocolate place off of Michigan Avenue today. Yum. It was super fun, and I pretty much paid $5 to drink a cup of straight up liquid fudge. It was great fun... the chocolate was so thick that I couldn't even finish it!
Tomorrow I start my internship, which I'm pretty stoked about, and I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. I just hope I can get there in time and not get lost!

I'm here!

Okay, so there was a few things I probably should have known before I

came to do this program.

1. Just because someone says they know where a street is, doesn't mean they do. Apparently you can live in Chicago your entire life and have no clue how to get to Randalph from Union Station.

2. Be not afraid to hail a taxi.

3. Everyone in this program is Dutch. I am not. I am learning a lot.

There is a lot of really good stuff going on here though. It has been culture shock though... to come from a town of a thousand people, and from a Christian college that is hardly on the map, and be dumped in Chicago is to truly experience change.

Yesterday was my first day. I rode Amtrak in to Union Station (which I had never been to before), which is absolutely a gorgeous piece of architecture. I walked into the Great Hall and felt so... small. You could see all the travelers in there, but you could also see the homeless people sitting there trying to get warm.

Then I walked outside. My plan was to use my GPS and just walk to the hotel, but for some reason it wasn't connecting with the satellite. I sat there, stupified on the street, trying to figure out where to go, when I homeless man walked up to me and asked me where I wanted to go... I told him what street I wanted, and he told me to follow him. He told me a little bit about himself... his name was Antwon, he took people where they were going for a living, and I was going to tip him, right? Because the last guy didn't tip him. It was pretty entertaining talking to Antwon, especially when he missed the street I was supposed to be on three times, and then put me in a cab so that I would be able to get where I was supposed to be. And I made it! Hotel Allegro!

My time here so far has been really... overwhelming. It's hard to believe I'm here, first of all, because I never thought I would actually make it. Second, it seems like I'm being overloaded with information. For the past two days, we've been in seminars about safety, housing, transportation, internships, and anything else they could think of. I hardly know how to handle it. I can't wait until we are done being "orientated" so that the fun can start!

A few final words - I do have an apartment in Uptown. I do have an internship. So basically all I have to figure out is how to get around without being assaulted, which shouldn't be too bad. If you're worried, don't be. I was just joking about being assaulted.

More later!

An attempt to keep the panicking to a minimum...

Just a little over a week! I can't believe it's sneaking up on me so soon!

While I'm not completely freaked out, I know this next week is going to be pretty eventful. I'm at school for another few days, working and waiting for a lot of my friends to get back from their cross-cultural trips to Guatamala, Costa Rica, South Africa, and everywhere else in the world. It'll be pretty great to see them one last time before I head out for my adventure!

Thursday I leave SAU, and I likely won't be spending much quality time here again until I graduate in May... it's kind of sad to think that something I have grown so familiar with will soon be a part of my past, but on the other hand, the end of one thing is only the beginning of another.

I just have a few minor details to take care of before I hit the city... packing, a train ticket, etc. For the most part, I'm ready to take the city by storm.

Mostly, I'm just trying to remain upbeat while I try not to panic!