Went to the Art Institute today...

It's legit.

--Silvia

Trippy Tuesday

Dear ACM-ers, potential ACM-ers, family of ACM-ers, and random strangers who stumbled upon this blog...

HI!

It's Silvia again. Here to give you the latest news on what happenin' in the Windy Blizzard. I mean City. Windy City. Excuse my #BrainFreeze.

Tuesday was one eventful day. And NO you awful people, the word "trippy" in my title does not mean substance (ab)use, it means that this Tuesday was full of TRIPS! You know how in normal academia, class time is 90% and field trips are 10% ? Well ACM Chicago is an educational program where the percentages are REVERSED. AND IT'S GREAT.

Here's a photoblog of my Tuesday.

Woke up, Flawless.

My Breakfast! It's the little things.

First stop:
Museum of Contemporary Photography

 

Found items in detroit

Then the Center for Book and Paper arts "Social Paper" exhibition

Coffee & lunch at Overflow Café with Anna. Check it out sometime.

Then a hop on the train...

Chicago Cultural Center: Jan Tichy (Turns out its not pronunced like Jan Tich-y, but like Yan Teekey)

Tiffany dome

Preach. Emerson= Mah Main Squeeze

After we left, Mohammad rapped with this homeless dude #newfriend

Meanwhile in the city, building lights replace stars,

which are then reflected by the lake

Well, that's my Tuesday of Trips, and I'm barely awake. Good night!

A Delicious Weekend Recap

Hello everyone! It's Liane, here to brag about what a wonderfully sweet weekend I had in Chicago.

During our Friday Core Course, all of the students in the Chicago Program had the opportunity to spend our morning on Valentines Day meeting with Alderman Joe Moore. We met with him at Chicago City Hall, a building with an interior as impressive as Moore's Participatory Budget (I'll explain this more). Take a look at a few of the shots I was able to snap while waiting for the elevator.

 

 

Now, getting back to our meeting with Alderman Moore...

 

He hails from Chicago's 49th Ward, and defies any concept of a corrupt Chicago politician. In fact, he has such a passion for taking care of his constituents that he has become somewhat of a celebrity for his efforts in promoting civic engagement throughout his ward.

 

The work he is most recognized for is an innovative method for budgeting, known as Participatory Budgeting, which utilizes community meetings and voting to develop a budget for the ward's annual capital project money provided by the city. His Participatory Budget has inspired other politicians and council members across the nation, and is even had recognition in Europe! Leave it to a Chicago Politician to stir things up, this time for the better. 

 

After a very informative presentation by Alderman Moore about the way Chicago politics are carried out, specifically the unique situation of Aldermen, and a discussion of the history of Chicago's infamous politicians, our class was brought into the Chicago City Hall Council Chamber for a Q & A session. The photo below is of Alderman Moore standing behind the chair that seats Mayor Emanuel during City Council Meetings.

 

 

The experience of being able to meet with an Alderman, and to have the chance to sit in Chicago's City Council Chambers for a private Q & A session with him, is a perfect example of how unique the ACM Chicago Program is.

 

After class finished on Friday afternoon, our weekend officially began! My roommates and I decided to celebrate Valentines Day by having dinner together at our apartment. It was a fun way for a bunch of single people to enjoy a holiday reserved for those blissful people in relationships. Why should they have all the fun?

 

The next day a few of us went out for brunch in Wicker Park to a place called The Bongo Room. If you ever find yourself looking for a good place to go for brunch in Chicago, PLEAE GO HERE!!! I have never before in my life been more satisfied by a meal.... hands down.

 

The menu is organized into categories of sweet and savory, where you order a savory dish for yourself and split a sweet dish among the table. I decided on a Croissant Breakfast Sandwich for myself, and the table shared the Chocolate Stack: a generous serving of chocolate French Toast topped with shaved white and milk chocolate, surrounded by a warm sauce consisting of chocolate, banana, and mascarpone.

 



After finishing brunch, we needed to walk around to help commence the digestion of such a rich meal. Wicker Park is definitely a great place to aimlessly wander about, as there are so many unique shops to explore. When it was time to head back to Hyde Park, we were treated to a musical performance at the Blue Line stop at Jackson. These guys were fantastic!!! I hope I get to hear them again.

 



 

On this week's agenda for the Urban Studies students is a trip to Growing Power for a field visit and a meeting with an assistant states attorney for Cook County. We will be exploring the topic of Restorative Justice, something that I know very little about. So be on the lookout for posts exploring that topic in the days ahead.

Philosophical Questions

Right now my roommates are playing Cards Against Humanity. I tried to take a picture of the group, but the camera only likes Emma:

This is Katie, by the way. This week was cool. I got an internship with ComedySportz, and I'm working out another opportunity with iO. My first day is tomorrow, even though I typically get wild for Presidents Day.

On Tuesday, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. On the bus ride back, I learned of a new hairstyle that's trending:

I also brought shame to the world of comedy this week. Despite Nathan Fielder's genius in founding Dumb Starbucks, I needed caffeine. I had a Nyquil hangover. But I want to plug Comedy Central's "Nathan For You." WATCH IT.

We got to meet Alderman Joe Moore, who is an ACM alum. He talked about "participatory budgeting" and how Mayer Daley was a d-bag and vetoed his proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10 for large retail businesses.

The coolest thing I did this week was visit The Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA). It's the largest non-profit service center in the Midwest, and it's the most amazing functional, forward-thinking organization I've ever experienced in real life. I want to live there. (That's actually possible, because the seventh floor is an "intentional community" where "green" people live. Yeah, this place started as a commune.) More importantly, a cute boy was growing plants there. And another guy makes biofuel. And there's banana trees in the women's restroom. This place is wild.

Then it was Valentine's Day. My neighbors blasted sexy-times music all night. It started again early the next morning, but I could hardly be mad when I heard, "I love it when you call me big pop-pa."

Real highlight of the week: watching Dazed and Confused in the weight room. That t.v. has cable, so I'll be really buff by the end of the semester.

Too many pictures? Post an angry comment. Trying too hard to be funny? Post an angry comment. You're the girl with the hair from Whoville? POST AN ANGRY COMMENT.

Thanks, fans! Love you. I would be nothing without you.

xoxo

SiLvIa In ChIcAgO

HELLO!

My name is Silvia Foster-Frau and I'm here typing live from Café 53, a small coffee shop in Hyde Park's Harper Court. I was yelping coffee shops in the area and decided to go for this one because of the especially delicious-looking pics of baked goods. So even though my table is rickety and I'm sitting right next to the door, the ginger cream scone and hot coffee has curbed any lurking discontentment.

...And now my post is sounding like one of those quirky Yelp reviews. Back to business.

Welcome! To the official blog of ACM Chicago and particularly to the first official post by yours truly! Here's where you can get all the deets on the chicago program, without the formality.
My name is Silvia, I'm an English major @ Grinnell College, I'm from Galesburg, Illinois (G-TOWN, 'SUP), and I'm doing the arts track in the Chicago program. This means I'm taking an arts seminar class with Susannah Papish, working on an artsy Independent Study Project (ISP) under the mentor-ship of Jason Pallas, taking the core course along with everyone else, and working at an internship site.

First let me gush about my internship. I'm interning at a latino/bilingual newspaper called Extra. I started last week and my article made the front cover of this weeks newspaper! Talk about hands-on internhips. To write the article, I got to interview the governor of the state of Mexico Eruviel Ávila, and shake the hand of Gov. Pat Quinn (of IL)! Look up my articles at extranews.net 


The breadth of experiences I've had just in these past two weeks is breath-taking. Breadth-taking.

Here are some notables: 

• history museum (including Ebony mag. fashion exhbition)
• contemporary art museum
• sandwich at Uber lunch place in loop (European style--we're talking baguette and manchego cheese) 
• Green Mill jazz lounge (ghost of Al Capone spotted)
• Bongo Room brunch (ordered the "Chocolate Tower". It's even better than it sounds)
• Wicker park/Bucktown wandering (including Filter café and Recycled, a cool thrift store)
• Casa Estado de México (this is what my article was about)
• IO (previously called Improve Olympics) alumn show
• citizenship workshops at Pius Parish (I was reporting on new loan system for ppl applying for citizenship)
• Walnut Room in Macy's tower (super fancy)
• city council building and alderman Joe Moore (he's a Knox grad! And he has really cool community participation projects in his ward).

Last night we went to the UChicago Winter Art Soirée and it was on the 9th floor. I'd like to leave you with this night view of hyde park.

 Oh, Chicago. You dry my skin, freeze my body, but still manage to warm my heart.



 If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at silvia.foster.frau@gmail.com

Liane Olson

Hello everyone!

My name is Liane Olson, I am a senior from Cornell College majoring in Sociology. This next semester with the Chicago Program has so many incredible events ahead of it, and I look forward to sharing them here.

Spring semester kicked off on Sunday February 2nd, and after just two weeks I feel like I am starting to live like a true Chicagoan. My apartment, which I share with two other wonderful people, is located in Hyde Park. It is a historic neighborhood that boasts claims to fame such as home to President Obama, the University of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry.

This map, courtesy of Wikipedia's page on Hyde Park, displays the neighborhood boundaries. Notice how close we are to the lake! Spring cannot come soon enough. I am anticipating relaxing by the lakefront as soon as the snow melts.

I will be one of three students bloggers for the program this semester, We will all be sharing our experiences of being an ACM Chicago Program student. This program offers three areas of concentration: Art, Entrepreneurship, and Urban Studies. I am enrolled in the Urban Studies seminar, which for the Spring of 2014 has the theme of Human Rights and Creative Social Change in the Chicago Context. I cannot wait to share what I learn from my seminar here! There is also a class held every Friday, known as Core Course, which brings all students together for the day. In each of our classes, we get to take our learning into the city to experience first hand what were are discussing in the classroom.

Pleas note that I am one of the few remaining people on the planet without a Smart Phone so I have to remember to bring my camera (Hence the reasoning for such bleak first blog picture wise). I promise, much more photographs will be included in my upcoming posts....

Hope you are as excited as I am to see what this Chicago adventure holds in store!

Justin Bieber

Hi.

I'm Katie McKinley, a senior at Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana. I also grew up in the one-stoplight town of Hanover, so this semester in the Chicago Program is my chance to see how people with more stoplights live. After the first week, I still don't pretend to be cool with city stuff: I expect people to steal from me, I expect every train to crash, and I expect I'll cry a lot. FUN!

But really, it is fun. I wasn't on the train that crashed.

I'm in the Arts Program, hoping to intern at a comedy company. I love doing improv and writing sketches and laughing at other people being funny. And I'm a Chemistry major, so I use comedy to maintain sanity.

This winter may be the start of the apocalypse, so forgive me for not posting enough pictures of me doing things that require leaving my apartment (which has big enough windows for me to see other people enjoying the city). Here's a picture from the Chicago History Museum:

We went to the Chicago History Museum on the first Friday of the program. Chicago's history is richer than I'll ever be. These were Dennis Rodman's shoes long before he sang "Happy Birthday," Marilyn-Monroe style, to Kim Jong Un:

Earlier in the week, we went on a scavenger hunt throughout the city. This was either an activity to let us explore the great aspects of Chicago OR an attempt to weed out the weak students in the negative temperatures. Here is a group of students in the Chicago Program (guess which one is me!):

You're wrong. I'm not in that picture.

The first week was great. However, I hope the next stage of the apocalypse is sunny with a high of 75.

Whirl Wind

The last month has been a whirl wind of projects and places. Thanksgiving came late this year and fell very close to Christmas. I traveled back to the bluegrass of central Kentucky to celebrate all the things I'm thankful. On arriving back into the city, my drunkness off turkey and stuffing wore off immediately. I faced the realization that the program that I have grown to love would be ending in a few short weeks. Here are some of my favorite moments during those weeks that flew by.

Showing off Chicago to my Father

My father drove me back to the city after Thanksgiving. This gave me the opportunity to show him around some of my favorite spots in the city. Being able to take him on the CTA with confidence was a type of closure experience to the program for me. A bitter sweet moment was when he commented that "you have really found a home here." When in just in two weeks this place that has become my home will no longer be my "home". 

Finishing Core Course

Core Course has been a whirl wind experience. I've been exposed to so many different view points and opinions in this class. Our final project revolved around using our asset mapping to help a particular problem in our neighborhoods. 

Sus the Amazing

Sus, a girl in the Chicago Program is very talented in songwriting and singing. As part of her ISP she wrote songs about Chicago and preformed them at open mics. This video is from an open mic that she won! 

The Last Thing

Everyone has milestones in their lives. Your first car, graduating, your first date, etc. Well, coming to Chicago would be the single biggest milestone of my life so far. This journey has been a tipping point for me. I've become a different, better person than I was one I came. I'm more informed, more bipartisan, calmer, and braver. Chicago has both hardened and softened me. I think I learned more about myself from this experience than I learned about Chicago and I learned more about this city than I could ever have imagined.

Now, with the golden light spilling across Broadway and tracing the lanes down Montrose, I feel like I really see the city. This time, this place, these people--it will never be this way again. So, I'm going to spend the next few hours packing my things and cataloging every experience I've had here. Here's my final goodbye, in my own words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qo6JZtOVmA

It's been real.

Later,

Sara Wines

Hanover College

The Next-To-Last Thing

So, yet again, you suffer and go days without any word from us, hanging on the edge of your seats, waiting for an update. And now, it's almost over. It's too soon. But, before I get into all this sad stuff I'm gonna give you a run down of what's been happening since November 9th.

I explored one of the only parts of Uptown I haven't really been to, Clark Street. It's filled with all these crazy import stores where stuff is just insanely cheap.

They carry all kinds of things--mind blowing variety, I'd say. Bet you can't guess where my fam's getting Christmas presents from~

I also ran into the Puppet Bike downtown and had a great time! It was super duper adorable!

Totally precious. Only minimally creepy (but maybe that's just me and my own issues with puppets). There's always two characters and they dance with each other. It looks totally real, and it blows my mind how much expression there can be in the body language of a doll.

Plus my BFF from college came home from her studying abroad in Australia at the University of Wollongong, and we did some cool site-seeing type stuff I haven't had the time to do yet. We went ice skating, which I'd never done before, and it was really fly. I managed to not fall and embarrass myself, but I probably did get hypothermia or something.

waiting in line for skates for 45 minutes, getting pumped

(I probably didn't need that double shot of espresso)

causing accidents and trying not to freeze to death

(wind speeds of 30mph+personal velocity=nope)

And, while all this was happening, I was busy trying to wrap up my ISP (reference my last post) and my Core Course assignments and my Arts Seminar and my Internship. Wowza. I can tell you now that I'm extremely satisfied with the end products, but there were a few super long nights and some near melt downs.

a practice portrait for my ISP

And here's all of us, all the now alumnus of 2013--with all our assignments behind us and accomplishments to bear with us into the next thing.

Later,

Sara