August 13, 2008
The move from Austin to Chicago was exhausting to say the least and I had the easiest job of all. I owe a huge thank you to my mom who helped me do everything from pack to set up my internet service (which to this day still isn’t working). It’s
I arrived in Chicago after a nice week vacation in Wyoming with my aunt’s grandmother and mother. I spent the week up there escaping the heat and celebrating my Aunt Lorie’s grandmother’s 90th birthday. Mind you, Great Grandma is anything but helpless, she’s smart as a whip and despite being blind has the keenest ear I’ve ever seen.
Anyway, we celebrated with my aunt’s family from Sunday until Thursday. I arrived home Thursday at 9:15pm and was on a plane headed for Chicago at 8:00am. Needless to say, my mother helped me out a lot to swing that one. She shipped numerous items of mine for me and packed up much of it since my move from my apartment in Austin was a bit crazy as well.
We arrived in Chicago on Friday and immediately headed straight for Ikea, the furniture superstore. After quite a few hours shopping around and picking out the perfect sofa, bed, etc, my mother realized that the items we were purchasing were not already put together. I explained that we’d have to build many of the items and my mother suddenly became aware of what she’d agreed to do and regretfully consented to my purchases. My purchases were scheduled to arrive Tuesday, the first day of my orientation for law school.
The next few days my mother and I spend our time building items that we’d taken home with us, grocery shopping and running around Chicago in general trying to cover all our bases. Staring at my beautiful, yet painfully empty apartment was not very exciting.
I wish I could say everything went smoothly from there but the facts are as follows: AT&T messed up our phone service resulting in enormous amounts of stress and a few tears and Ikea shipped us items with missing pieces, broken pieces, or just didn’t ship some items at all (my desk). The cable company couldn’t come until next Monday, so my apartment was completely bare, with no tv, no internet and nothing to do other than people watch. (So we did.)
Chicago doesn’t sleep. At 3am it’s not uncommon to see people wandering the streets as if it’s daytime. Sirens constantly pass by and trash trucks feel it necessary to empty the trash at convenient hours like 2:30am. At 5pm the streets are no longer resevered for vehicles, but are rather venues for the hordes of people who work downtown. Pedestrians always have the right away and will often walk out in front of moving traffic, on a “red hand” pedestrian crossing and cars will slam on their brakes coming inches from a man in an Armani suit on his Blackberry. (He never seems to look up to even notice.)
Law School is something all together different. The first day some of the students wore suits. Some wore jeans, but nobody wore a t-shirt (this includes me). Everyone stepped out onto the second floor of the building and stood in their respective lines waiting to take photos for their student ids. We all scanned the room and scoped each other out. Nobody seemed too intimidated by anyone else. The students ranged in age from my tender age of 21 to as old as probably 50 or so. Everyone seemed groomed and well mannered.
Once we’d been split into our sections, I began talking with one of the girls I’d seen in line. She introduced herself and she suddenly seemed very familiar to me. Her name is Ela and she’s from Poland and she reminds me of my old roommate in Spain, Holley. I feel much more at ease when I am talking to her because she is very real. She doesn’t try to impress or show off, she’s very humble and would often tell me that she just really wants to be a lawyer.
I feel like Ela and I are more similar than many of the other students are to me. She has passion, real passion and desire to succeed, but isn’t about to stand up in front of the class and tell everyone how smart she is. But she’s tough too; she doesn’t seem like someone you’d want to push around because she’d tell you how it is. I admire her spirit and I hope there is a little of her in me.
I met some other people at orientation who were just as nice, but none of them had quite the same affect as Ela on me. We’ve sat next to each other today as well and we just get along.
Today we went to Dave and Busters after orientation, which was nice because I met some more people, but honestly I didn’t make life long friends or anything. It was a bit too cool kid crowd for me.
Overall, I’m excited for school to start. I want/need a challenge. I bought my books today and I cannot wait for them to get to me. I want to get my head start and trying to stay as far away from the slump as I possibly can.
