Ok, long post time. This is my first time doing this, and I've been here for two weeks so there's a lot to talk about. My other posts will probably be shorter, but this one will be super long, just fair warning.
Introductions first, I guess? That's what a lot of the other students did. (I totally went through the blog to see what other people posted, how often and for how long and what they talked about, because I don't know anything.) I'm a Creative Writing major from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. I'm from Golden, Colorado, which is one of the most beautiful places to grow up, although I've never grown up anywhere else so I'm probably biased. But Colorado is a really amazing, really beautiful place. I'm a senior, set to graduate in a little less than 9 months, and I'm currently eating Cheez-its, which I couldn't live without.
I want to begin each post with a different quote, which hopefully will have something to do with whatever I'm talking about. I have a huge quote wall up in my room that contains all of the meaningful/inspirational/awesome phrases I've been collecting since my senior year of high school. I literally have hundreds of them, all on colorful sticky notes (another thing I couldn't live without). For most of them, I have no idea who said it or where it's from, which also hopefully won't be a problem. But all artists borrow from each other, so it's ok. So long as something is gained from it.
I don't really know where to begin. I have been to Chicago before. I grew up going to Wisconsin every summer, and each summer my aunt Kathy would take my family to Chicago. They were always amazing trips. I know all the touristy spots, like Navy Pier and the Walnut Room at Macy's. What I've known of Chicago has been from the outside looking in, from walking its streets for at most a couple days. Living here is absolutely, completely different. Of course it is.
Golden is about 20 minutes (depending on how good the traffic on 6th avenue or I70 is) from Denver. I've spent a lot of time in Denver, but that hasn't amounted to anything like actually living there. My whole life I've always driven, been driven, walked, or rode my bike everywhere, so probably the biggest thing I had to get used to immediately was all the public transportation. From the first day we were riding the CTA like crazy. So far I have a biased view that the Pink Line is better than the other rail lines, mostly because it's so familiar and it gets me home, plus it's not underground.
The CTA is really weird. Riding it is like a social experiment. I've heard people talk about the crazy stuff that happens on the CTA, but so far I haven't seen anything crazy. Everything has been normal, which is just as interesting to me. I've had to get pretty used to having no space and being up and closer to people than I really want to be. I've experienced the moment of panic when the train is absolutely packed and the doors are closing and you still need to get on, and the sweep of relief when we reach the Clark/Lake station and it empties out enough to be able to sit down. I'm getting pretty good at keeping my balance while standing- the trick is to just stand with your feet apart. Seriously. The closer your feet are to each other, the more likely it is that you'll tip over.
What's really interesting to me is that you look without really seeing on the CTA. You do the same thing day after day. You pass the same old boring stations on the same old boring route, and you barely give them a second glance. You look at everyone who comes on, then look away; you avoid eye contact with the people across from you; you especially avoid looking at the person who has to stand right in front of you when it gets crowded and their crotch is right in front of your face. All you really care about is your destination, and you pay attention enough to know when it's coming up, but otherwise you sort of slip into this void, these moments of mere passage where you do nothing, and nothing really matters until you get from one place to the next. It's super weird. What's even weirder is that I'm already used to it. Also, I keep seeing people from Knox on the trains. Like legitimately, I'm not just hallucinating, I know they live in Chicago and it weirds me out even more. It's like worlds are clashing.
I think a lot on the CTA. I should start reading or listening to the music, but for now I just stare past everyone's heads at nothing and think. I think of the weirdness of it all, and of the third rail. There are signs everywhere, on the trains, at the stations, that warn you about falling onto the tracks. Honestly, seeing all those signs telling me not to touch the rails makes me want to touch them. I want to see what it's like, even though I know it'll kill me. It's just the whole tell-me-not-to-do-something-and-I'll-do-it thing, it's like I'm five.
I also always imagine that scene (or really sequence) from Spiderman 2, the one with Toby Maguire, not Andrew Garfield, when Spiderman and Doc Ock fight on top of the train (and inside it, and around it, and through it) and then Spiderman stops the runaway train, and people help get him inside and everyone totally sees his secret identity but it's all good. I mentioned this to one of the other students, and she said that'd be terrifying. I realized, yeah, it'd be pretty terrifying to have your train be moving way too fast and almost fall completely off the tracks, and to have a huge hole in the side of your car from an evil villain with four mechanized killer arms, but it'd be so cool to see Spiderman! And to help him. Maybe being in danger is worth it? I've always wondered that, with the superhero films. The superheroes are all savvy with their saving and then they leave, and the person who was rescued was screaming a moment ago but now they're all like, oh my god thank you, and are they traumatized or does being saved by Spiderman himself eclipse all previous experiences? And that kind of sucks that basically in order to meet him, something bad has to happen to you, and so you're in a bad situation but here comes your friendly neighborhood superhero and I wouldn't know what to feel.
These are the things I think about while riding the CTA.
Besides the crowded, Spiderman-less transportation, one of the hardest adjustments I've had to make so far is cooking for myself. I can make ramen? And soup, without messing up. My dad was a professional chef for a while, he even went to cooking school in England, and basically what I've learned from him are things he's done to rescue me, like how to add flour when the fish for your fish n' chips are falling apart, and how to use a knife with your fingers curled in so your veggies don't taste like blood. I've never really had to cook for myself. My dad always cooked for the family, and I had an awesome dinner every night. At Knox, I'm on the meal plan, and I always had amazing coffee and tea and food and veggies a short walk away. But I'm learning, slowly. I made tacos Friday night! I've made a salad, complete with tomatoes and cheese and meat and ranch dressing. I'm going to try to make pasta with chicken, and wraps. If you've got a couple essentials, like tortillas and pasta, you're okay.
I'm also learning how long things last. My cheez-its have actually lasted me two weeks, which is pretty impressive, and good because they're expensive (which makes me sad). The bag of chips that would exist for a couple days at home have also lasted me two weeks. Green and orange peppers I need to eat pretty quickly, before they start getting bruised. It's actually kind of nice cooking for one because when you're the only one eating something, it lasts a long time.
With ten people all cooking for themselves and stuffing the fridge, though, it's easy to forget what you have, too. I bought ground beef last week and I have absolutely no idea where it went, and I found three peaches in the back of my cupboard that were definitely no longer peaches (which is probably why my cupboard was smelling weird).
Anyways. We've done so much. There's so much I want to talk about, but that would take forever, plus no one wants to read a really long thing, so I'll just make a list of all the places I've been to so far:
- The ACM Chicago Program Office, on Adams street, a billion times. I'll probably get sick of going to this by the end of the semester. Maybe not.
- Uber sandwich, a place down the street from the CP office, which has fancy sandwiches and soups and salads that are vegan and awesome-sounding if you like healthy food. It looks expensive, but isn't.
- An architectural boat tour on the river. The whole program did this our third or fourth night here. It was at sunset; looking at the skyline and all the towering buildings was beautiful, and hearing the history of the architecture was really cool too.
- Milennium Park I've been here before, and I know it's a tourist draw, but I love parks, and I love sitting in the grass while it's still warm and eating lunch or calling people on the phone. This park is huge. It's crazy.
- the Harold Washington Library I have never been in a library this big before. It seems like everything you could ever know is contained in here. The outside of the building is beautiful, and so is the inside.
- the Chicago History Museum Everyone went there for last Friday's Core Course class. This museum was amazing. I love history, and I felt like I could've spent the whole day in there. We learned so much about the Great Chicago Fire, the World Fair, and other things that have both defined Chicago and given it reason to better itself.
- Opera in the Park I don't think it was officially called this. But last Saturday, I met a group of people in Millenium Park, where they were having opera at the pavilion. The music was amazing, the view of all the buildings was amazing, the pavilion was amazing. It was great.
- NiteCap My roommate and I went last Sunday for brunch. They have really good coffee, and the people there are really friendly. Sitting there with my laptop doing homework made me feel like I was back in Galesburg, at the Beanhive. Maybe once you've been to one coffee shop you've been to them all, I don't know.
- the Museum of Contemporary Art My ISP met here last week, to look at Simon Starling's exhibit. He made an experiemental film called Project for a Masquerade (Hiroshima), which juxtaposed Henry Moore's monument to the discovery of the atomic bomb, and the creation of masks who I think represented both the characters in the play that was narrated throughout the film, and people in real life who had a hand in developing the bomb. I'm not completely sure, I was confused, I'd probably need to watch the film several times to really get a sense of what it was talking about. But the film was amazing, and it had incredible extreme close-ups of the sculptor's hands as he made the masks, and then once the film was over, we went to the other side of the screen and the masks were right there, in sharp light and surprisingly tiny. It was really cool.
- the Art Institute I went here with another student when we had a long lunch. She has a membership, which lets you bring an extra person in for free. I've never been there before, and going in for a half an hour made me want to buy my own membership. I saw paintings there that I've only seen pictures of before. We walked through the impressionist gallery, and it was amazing. That was probably one of the best things I've ever done with an extra half hour.
- Young Chicago Authors I was in there briefly for new volunteer orientation for my internship. They host WordPlay, which is the longest-running open mic for youth in Chicago, and LouderThanABomb. It was a really cool place to be, especially for a writer.
- The DuSable Museum of African American History We went here for my Arts seminar, mostly to look at the exhibit they were having on African-American cartoon characters from the 1970s and the 1980s, who were some of the first depictions of African Americans that weren't blatant, misleading stereotypes, but real, strong people.
- the Punch House this is in the basement of Dusek's, along 18th street. It had a revolving wall that led to an extra room, a lot of flickering candles, and good drinks, I was really impressed.
- Other local restaurants in Pilsen that have great food. One I went to last Friday with my roommate, which I can't remember the name of at all and I forgot to look before we left, but they were a tiny place that served burgers and sandwiches, and the huge cheeseburger I got was actually really good. I judge burgers according to how they compare to my dad's, and this one was pretty good. The two people working there were some of the friendliest I've met.
Some (hopefully) coolio pictures:
The water fall? Water tower? One of the water things at Millenium park, which changed colors.
Both water falls
I found this in the Chicago History Museum, by the woman's bathroom. It's the life mask of Abraham Lincoln. He had his face molded in plaster while he was still alive; this is exactly what he looked like. This really creeped me out.
The pavilion at Milennium Park
A view of the buildings, on our boat tour
So this club is apparently where rich people who actually work out go to work out. It's super exclusive, all I remember hearing the tour guide saying was that big celebrities go there, and I thought I 'd take a picture of a place I'll never be.
As we reached the lake, there were really amazing views of the skyline. And amazing views of the backs of everyone scrambling to take pictures.
The amazing stairs at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I really loved these stairs. I used to do this kind of thing when I was in high school, but I wrote it all over one of my bookshelves.
Last night, my friend Kelly and I went to this local film showcase that was happening in Pilsen. The first film, Fanfare for Marching Band, was a short one that followed Mucca Pazza as they ran around Chicago playing music and dancing in libraries and grocery stores, flashy and vibrant among the frozen, ordinary things other people were doing. The second one, Maydays, was longer, over an hour, and was about two high school students who meet at a Model United Nations conference and fall in love. Daniel's from Winnetka and comes from a very rich, very privledged lifestyle, while Alicia lives here in Pilsen. She faces a lot of stereotyping and prejudice from Daniel's parents, and he faces some from her friends. The film's about overcoming those things, and whether two people who "are so different, but get along so well" can manage to stay together. It was a great film, especially considering its low budget, and since it was partly based in Pilsen (they legitimately filmed at Benito Juarez high school), the ACM should've made everyone go.
The whole point about the film thing is, I have only been here for two weeks, and already my sympathies and understanding is changing. A month ago, watching the film, I would've taken the side of Daniel, of the privledged white characters, not the hispanic ones. When his dad was talking to Alicia and saying how great her family restaurant was because "it's good to hear that they're cleaning things up and getting some nice things," and everyone had negative things to say when she mentioned she lived in Pilsen, I would've been like, so? It's a bad area, right? But already my perspective's changed. I understood how much it hurt Alicia to have people make jokes about how bad her neighborhood was, because it isn't true. I know, I've experienced, how that isn't true anymore. It stung me too. Instead of thinking, so? I was thinking, hey. Which is something I would not have done even a month ago.
During orientation, one of the internship coordinators, Victoria, explained to all of us this theory she has, how we all are looking through our own windows out into the world. All we have ever seen and known and experienced is through that window, and we have to come to understand that everyone's window is different. We walk around with a singular persepective, and hopefully at some point in our lives, we learn other perspectives and other windows too, and understand them. She brought this up during the first week, because that's partly what the program wants to teach us; how to see the world in new ways, and to not only learn about those ways, but to experience them ourselves.
There's a book series I read by Scott Westerfield, the Uglies series, that has a thread that follows the same kind of idea. The books are set hundreds of years into the future, and in the first novel, the main character, Tally, is out in the wild, beyond the city she's always known, and she stumbles upon this village in the wilderness. Its people think she's some sort of god; they're living in huts and have zero technology. They wear skins for clothing and hunt their food; essentially, Tally thinks they're savages. After a while, she realizes that the city government has purposefully built this village and used it as an experiment, to see how people used to live. She becomes good friends with one of the villagers, Andrew Simpson-Smith, and he takes her to "the edge of the world," an area on the outskirts of the wild where there are little dolls hung up in the trees. The dolls electrocute anyone who tries to come near them. This is the way the government keeps the villagers in their area, and prevents them from knowing anything about the outside world. Since Andrew has no grasp on technology at all, he doesn't understand that it's not the dolls but the electricity that's harmful; all he knows is that if he goes near "the little men" it's incredibly painful, and to him, this is the boundary of the world. There's absolutely nothing beyond it. Tally tells him the truth. Eventually, Andrew escapes the village, and ends up helping Tally later on in the series. In the last novel (the fourth? or maybe the third? I'm pretty sure it's the fourth, but I can't remember for sure) he says to Tally, "You must learn to see beyond the little men." It's an incredibly powerful moment, if you've read the whole series. It gave me gooesbumps when I read it, and that doesn't happen often.
The whole point of going into this long explanation is that Uglies has the same idea: learning to understand what's beyond your experience and perception. There's worlds and worlds out there, you just have to be open to them. I hope, by the time this semester ends, I'll have understood other people's windows, and I'll have learned to see beyond my little men.
- Laura
No comments:
Post a Comment