Month in Review

It's been awhile since I last updated, but I've been keeping busy!  Here's what I've done in the past month:

The East Lakeview Art Festival at the end of September:

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the world reknown conductor, Muni.  This was a FREE concert ant Millennium Park, look at the GORGEOUS background of the city lights.  I was there with 7 other classmates, we had a picnic on the lawn.  It was a gorgeous night and a beautiful concert.  The whole place was packed (they had to shut down the entrance 1/2 before the show started).  At the end, there was even fireworks!!

Now that I'm a member of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, I've been taking advantage of the bus tours and walking tours that they offer.  I've been to two so far:  The Great Chicago Fire Tour and the Loop Tour.  They were both great.  It was fun to learn more about the city and to walk around and just relaxing after a full week of learning.

The Chicago Fire Department.  The art piece marks the site where the Great Chicago Fire originated. 

Another free concert at the Millennium Park.  This was the Chicago Country Music Festival.  It had been a long stressful day of studying, so it was so good to take a break with one of my classmates and listen to some awesome concert, by Jake Owen and then Jewel.  Jewel yodeled.  It was random, but great!

 

And lastly, it was my birthday yesterday.  I had SUCH a wonderful day.  I had so many people wishing me happy birthday (thanks Facebook!).  I got a very sweet phone call from my lovely co-workers at EComm.  I miss the girls at the fire pod.  It was so great to hear from them.  I wrote an exam (and learned today that I received the highest mark in class!  WOOT!), my classmates got me a birthday card and mini cupcakes (totally unexpected, SO sweet of them!), and we all went out to celebrate after class.  The bar we went to had trivia night.  My team got 3rd place (with VERY little help from me), and this was my prize:

All in all, a fantastic month.  I feel like I'm getting the hang of grad school.  It's a lot of work, but I think I'm doing pretty well.  My past two exams have been good, anyways.  I love everything I'm learning, I LOVE my new friends, I love the new city.  I'm just too happy for words, and just so so lucky. 

The next month should be pretty hectic - I've got even more exams coming up and many papers and assignments all due within a week of each other.  But there are also lots of other exciting things:  we are taking a class trip to Wisconsin for a workshop over one of the weekends in November, for one.  Halloween is coming up, and I think I just might dress up this year if I can come up with an idea. 

Good Learning

Today I had the best class since I've started the grad program.  It was a Medical Genetics PBL class on translocations of the chromosomes.  I know I said I don't like PBLs, but I learned so much this class!  I have enjoyed most of my classes so far - but I find some of them kind of repetitive and dry (research methods, etc.).  Since I've tried to keep up with all the readings, a lot of times the lectures are just reviews of what I've already read, with few new and interesting ideas.  I prefer to learn something new when I'm in class, and when a class is largely reviews, I find my attention start to drift.  An easy solution could be to not do the reading before class so the materials would be new, but I don't want to fall behind on my reading and look like an idiot in class.  Anyways, tonight's class was great because our prof taught us things that were either not in the textbook or very confusing to learn on our own.  She really challenged us to think more about the confusing aspects of translocations - from the patient's perspective, and with real scenarios and test outcomes.  I really felt like I learned something new today.  It was VERY satisfying to realize the complexities of the mechanism and the AMAZING way our body copes with these random errors.  It was even more satisfying to feel like I understood it, and that there are more about it that I want to learn.  I loved that this class was so dynamic - more of a discussion and problem solving, rather than just passively memorizing the information.  All I want to do now is go and review the concepts I learned and apply them to some problems!  I think that's the only thing missing in this class and in grad school - there isn't a lot of "practice tests" like in high school or some university classes because teachers and students focus less on the evaluation and testing portion and more on the learning portion of education.  I learn by doing so that would've helped.  I could just make up some of my own questions, but that somehow doesn't feel like actually testing the limits of my knowledge since it was created from my knowledge. 

School has been great - I think I need more of a social life, though.  We don't have a lot of time for one, and the fact that I don't have many friends in the new city and that I live alone certainly don't help.  (Wow, that last sentence was definitely a run-on sentence!)  The past week also was kind of a more subdued week, where I spent most of my time by myself studying.  This is this "brunch or dinner with strangers" event that is put on by one of the student clubs, I'm thinking of going. 

I joined the gym, and I've been twice already.  I plan to keep up with exercising this time.  I feel really uncomfortable at the new gym, though.  I don't really feel like I know what I'm doing or what I should be doing.  There is a swimming pool and a sauna, but I feel sort of self-conscious using them (I don't know why), so I haven't yet.  There are classes as well, but again, I feel self conscious because I fear that my fitness level wouldn't allow me to keep up with the rest of the class.  I know I just need to get over it and eventually will feel more comfortable at this new gym, but for now, it's a struggle.  There was a personal training program that I could join which I know will make me feel better about being at the new gym, BUT it is $1200.  It simply isn't something I could afford. 

I definitely don't miss having a TV.  It's great!!  The only thing is I feel sort of out-of-touch with the world without watching the news, and I simply don't read news on the internet.  Oh well.  Overall, everything is great, I just feel like I need more human interactions, and maybe a little more social life.  I'm thinking concert in the part this weekend, or maybe opera with a classmate sometime this week.