gnat writes and writes. and writes. and procrastinates by blogging, and writes some more.

papers have been signed, and come june 7 our apartment will belong to somebody else.

short of maneuvering the logistics of subletting, i have done essentially nothing but thesis, thesis, thesis since my last post. i was on a productivity roll until this morning, at which point i hit a huge wall - i've done almost no work in the three hours i've been awake. what i HAVE done is start a google calendar called "last month in chicago" and plunk activities i still have somehow not managed into arbitrarily chosen dates. 

it feels like summer in chicago today (i haven't been outside yet, but my windows are all open so i can tell), and summer in chicago is an amazing feeling. 

t-26 days. 

gnat is reminded what "real winter" looks like

i've been back in chicago to for two weeks, but the weather conditions have been causing me to wonder if i hadn't fallen through a wormhole to a universe where the state of illinois had relocated itself 700 miles south of its actual location. it's been in the 40s and 50s since i got back, not that different from the northern california winter i returned from.

well, it definitely looks like "real winter" today. i woke up to heaps of snow falling out of the sky, upsetting pedestrians and blanketing cars, trees, and just about everything else in sight. in seven hours we've had upwards of four inches of snow, and it's still going strong out there.

unfortunately instead of spending the morning giddily dancing around in the snowflake melee (which is what i did last year) i had to be a real person and stomp off to the library. i'm not sure how it's possible, but everyone else walking around me seemed to be unaffected by the weather, whereas i arrived at school with my coat, hair, and scarf encrusted with a thick layer of ice. cara says that she too looked like a snowman in a class full of dry, composed students. maybe snow has a honing system that helps it preferentially attack non-natives? so much for being better at winter the second time around.

i'm off to warm up with a huge pot of posole.

gnat bundles up

it's starting to look (and feel) a lot like winter, even though it's technically still fall for at least another month or so longer...

most of the trees are bare of leaves and strung up with tiny white lights. this week we dipped down into the 30s for the first time, and just moments after i took this picture lazy white flecks started floating down around me. unfortunately they were more like very small hail that immediately melted than the great huge snowflakes we got the first time it snowed last year. we still haven't made it quite down to freezing temperatures yet so i'm going to go ahead and say that it wasn't the first snow - just really really cold rain.

fingers crossed for good snowflakes again this year. i still can't get over how great those little guys are.

gnat transitions smoothly back into chicago life

ok, so all i've done since being back (besides going to class) is attempt in vain to get over a cold (which i picked up, believe it or not, while still in california -suck it, cold weather). still, today i am overwhelmed with this feeling of excitement about being back in chicago. i'm in such a good mood, in fact, that even though it's freezing outside (technically, way below freezing) i actually kinda like it. i've procured a massive coat which is reminiscent of a sleeping bag and let me tell you, its ability to keep the cold out is downright miraculous.

tonight my "practice of bioethics" class met at a tapas restaurant near my apartment called 1492 - the idea being to expose us to accomplished people in our field and teach us how to network over dinner. i tell you this because had i not been sitting with people to whom i needed to appear to be a serious, aspiring young scholar of medical humanities and bioethics, i would have taken pictures of all of the food.

it was my first tapas experience, but because i can't provide pictures i will spare you an in depth analysis, suffice it to say that everything was delicious. i even (accidentally) ate some crostini type thing with a huge mushroom (basically the only food i will not eat) on it and didn't hate it. still, the whole idea of tapas feels utterly impractical to me so i am unlikely to go back.

in other news, my girl guy was in fine form today, undeterred by the cold he gave a several hour long performance of "this little light of mine" on our corner.

gnat only wants to see you laughing in the purple rain

thanks to the south evanston salvation army, i was able to overcome my halloween costume woes. the results were utterly ridiculous.

no real update today, as i am muddling through a philosophy paper (ish) but in the interest of procrastination here's some (more) silliness:

cara and i have been hosting weekly taco tuesday dinners, and thanks to an entertaining article i saw on foodgawker last week i served spaghetti tacos in addition to the regular ones. evidently there's a disney channel show that jokingly refers to spaghetti tacos for dinner, causing children all over the country to clamor for spaghetti tacos at family dinners and birthday parties.

kids are stupid. spaghetti tacos are awful.

gnat takes a field trip

to evanston!

grad student orientation was this monday. since all of my classes are on the chicago campus, only about 6% of the day's activities were applicable to me. (in fact, only the welcome to northwestern speech and the post orientation happy hour were at all applicable to me.) still, i got to see a little bit of the main campus, and there was free lunch. so basically, win-win. here's a very poorly taken picture of "the arch." you can't see it, but it says northwestern university.

now, guys - i'm probably a little bit biased, but in my opinion ucla is just the prettiest damn college campus there is. the cream and brick buildings, the rolling green hills that are perfect for taking a nap or reading a book between classes... still, even i have to admit that there is no place at ucla that has a view like this:

i spent the better part of the afternoon reading at this spot. not bad, northwestern. not bad at all.

gnat is reminded of why the heck she came all the way out here in the first place

i just got back from class and it was AMAZING! no but seriously, it was. my classmates are amazing, my professors are amazing, the readings are amazing, the campus is amazing. i think i'm really going to enjoy this program a lot, which is cool, since that's why i'm here (as much as all of my previous entries may have made it sound as if i were here to hang out and listen to free music).

the rest of my day was less than notable, the bulk of it was spent hanging out on my bed making my way through all of the reading for today's class that i have been neglecting since i got the syllabus, oh, two weeks ago.

last night i reconnected with a friend from high school who i hadn't seen in eight years. now, i say a lot of less than nice things about facebook but if it had not been for kristin's status update i would never have known that she too was new in the city and looking for people to explore the food scene with.

in other news, roast beef sandwiches are awesome. i know, cuz i'm eating one right now.