One of my new friends, Andrew, who hails from Minnesota, was actually at the Republican National Convention. The caveat: he was standing outside wearing black and avoiding riot police. And he's not just a demonstrator-- he's actually a huge Obama supporter as well. I like him a lot.
One of our first nights here, we had an orientation event at the lake. Our house, Blackstone, went to the lakeshore to have a bonfire, make s'mores, and tell ghost stories. Our O-Aide, Jono, sat there with the shadows of the fire playing across his face and began. "Now let m tell you a really scary story," he said. "Next January, John McCain could be our President!"
Terror gripped the crowd.
Yesterday, I took the antiquated University of Chicago practice known as the "swim test." I passed, but that's not what's important-- or funny. As I was steeling myself to jump in the pool, one of the kids mentioned that he was from Alaska. Immeditely, the lifeguard turned to him asked, "Can you see Russia from your hoose?"
As I was walking down 57th street after picking my classes (Greek Thought and Literature; Power, Identity and Resistance; Intermediate Latin; Elementary Hittite), I ran across a local woman wearing possibly the coolest Obama shirt I had ever seen. I asked her where she got it, and she directed me to the local Unitarian Church, where she said a man named Al would take care of me. I knocked on the door of the church, only to be informed by an elderly black man that it was closed.
"Oh," I replied. "I was just looking for Al."
"That's me," he said, pausing. "you here for one of them Obama shirts?"
"Yeah..." I replied, unsure of whether this was some sort of faux pas.
"Well, we got some bad shirts. Some real bad shirts we can sell you."
I wasn't sure if he meant bad as in bad, or bad as in good. I decided I'd make that judgment for myself. Soon, his brother pulled up and showed me a staggering array of Obama shirts, ranging from incredibly bad to incredibly "bad." I took his card and started to outline an order.
Other than the Obama stuff, there's a lot of great things going on in the neighborhood and at the school in general. It's truly like Hogwarts here. Unfortunately, the food kind of sucks (although today I had an excellent lunch of fried chicken, mac 'n' cheese, potato salad, greens, and cornbread) and I'm busy all the time. Today is really the first day I've had with a lot of free time, and that's only because I did all my other things -- swim test, class registration, etc-- yesterday.
So now I need to go take a nap before we have a lecture on safety (again).
peace
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