Danger staring you in the face

Oh yeah, here's my inspirational jam for the week.  Did you sing this song alone in your bedroom and think you were an amazing vocalist? Yeah, me too...



Those dimples, that little nose wrinkle... Motivations.


So I went to a bike expo over the weekend and didn't buy anything except beer and a veggie burger, but then I went home and planned on studying but I couldn't shake the feeling of missing something... something important.  I then went to a bike shop and spent a lot of money (though it was only $18 more than I'd budgeted to spend at the expo... about the same as the burger and beers...) and walked out with these babies

and the pedals to go with them, and a wrench for the pedals, and a litt-le bag that will fit under my seat and hold small things like keys and a wallet and a phone so I don't have to carry a backpack all the time.  Within the next few days, I will be riding my bike, attached at the feet, and it will be awesome.  Between now and then, however, a winter storm is expected to dump 7-10" of fresh snow on my fair city.


Grad school got real last week. Real real and real hard. And I'd thought that had already happened... Remember that really reading-intensive class last semester?  Yeah, well I've got three of 'em this semester and I'm not sure how I'm going to actually accomplish everything that needs accomplishing. I guess it doesn't help that I am blahgging instead of reading, huh?

It also doesn't help that, as I believe Angela pointed out, I have accidentally joined a bike gang and, resultingly, I have taken on the exciting challenge of organizing a mobile dance party ride called The Ride, Dance, Drink, Ride! Ride. If the weather is good, I'm guessing we'll get 15-20 people out on bicycles to ride around town and dance a lot, both off and on bikes. With mobile sound systems.  Am I excited? Yes.  Am I spreading myself thing? Ehhh.... yeah, probably.

But taking it easy doesn't feel as good as taking it... hard. Hrm.

Oh, and I just picked up some more hours in the computer lab, just this second, so that's, per week...
9 hours of class
12 hours of TAing
12 hours of lab monitor duty
and 30-40 hours of reading/homework if I want to be a good student and have a complete thesis proposal by the end of the semester...

The rest my time will be for the most fun stuff I can dream up (see: mobile dance party).

Is this turning into a bike blahg?

Perhaps it is, and I'm okay with that because clearly that suggests what part of my Chicago life I'm most super pleased with right now.

The semester started last Thursday.  I TA two sets of freshmen now, all day Thursday, all day Friday, and my kids now seem super fun and generally more energetic than they were last semester. Maybe we all had a rough start. We were all new.  I looked at my reviews from last semester's class and they were, to put it modestly, stellar.  I feel like I'm doing something right here. I am wondering how late is too late to switch the the teaching track...

I'll still be working long Mondays and a jaunt on Tuesdays in the computer lab, and I've got a required Art History class on Tuesday mornings, Thesis I on Tuesday nights, and another social theory sort of class on Wednesday mornings with the same incredible teach from last semester. I am generally pleased with this schedule, and it leaves me with mostly free evenings and nice blocks for studying/reading/doubting.

Over the weekend I rode for a short bit of Critical Mass and also did the Full Moon Fiasco with my new bike friends.  I seem to be developing two full sets of very different social scenes, ArtEd and Chainlink, and I really really like it. Like a lot. I suddenly feel like I know people here who could eventually make this place feel like home.  I am working on it and embracing it and feeling generally in love... but that kind of tentative love where you're sure this thing is worth loving in thought, even if it hasn't yet quite proven it in deed, so you decide to just go ahead and love because that is more pleasant than resisting, but sometimes you still get a little worried about the whole situation and you tend to keep that to yourself.  Unless you have a blahg.

So here are things I want/need (besides bikes themselves):

Clipless Pedals , major major step
Shoes , for my pedals.  Velcro for grownups!
Tights like this , but specifically windproof
Lobster gloves , for real finger quotes and dinosaur impressions
Rain gear , because it isn't always snowing


For those and many other reasons, I've been asking the universe to help me win the lottery.  I guess I should help the Universe by actually buying a lottery ticket some time.

Post lottery money deposit, this place will be one of my first stops.