We've started making good use of our back porch recently. The other night, we were sitting back there talking, listening to music, and enjoying the weather. Because it's staying light later, everything was cast in a sort of blue glow from the twilight. It reminded me of how the snow-covered ground in the winter starts to look blue after a few minutes.

Colin told me about different places in San Francisco. I've never been west of the Mississippi, so I've got to work on that. Apparently their China-Town is far superior to our own, here in Chicago. There's lots of open-air fish markets, the entire population is actually Chinese, and there's different menus for tourists. Also, most meals have some sort of cold fish and rice, regardless whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I was advised to read the Joy Luck Club.

Other places of note were the Golden Gate Park, wine country (in general), and Sausalito. I don't know what any of these are but maybe I'll get to San Francisco someday.

Brian talked more about Australia and seeing the road trains on the west coast. One way of transporting goods across the continent is by truck and trailer. Apparently, they've got semi trucks that drag along a series of trailers up to five or six, winding uncontrollably down the road. I've heard the best thing to do in a situation when one of these is headed your way, is to just pull off the road as far as you safely can.

Liz spoke of a guy named Giovanni from a small hotel in Rome. He was very nice, and he and his brother were concierges at the hotel where Liz stayed. Giovanni had his own restaurant, which turned out to be a few tables off an alley somewhere near his home. He cooked Liz and her friend an amazing meal with many different courses, and accompanied by a variety of wines. If I ever end up going to Italy, it seems like the kind of place I'd like to visit.

I still have a couple weeks of school left. It's weird to think if I'm never going to see most of these people again, or if we're going to stay in touch. Or where everyone will go when we part ways. Weird. But I guess it's all part of moving onto another chapter.

Elaboration.

Thursday I bought a ticket to Australia. I've never been there, and it's somewhere I can go fairly cheaply, support myself, and speak the language. It's pretty much the best time I could think of to do this sort of thing since I'm kind of lacking career employment for the moment. And in the long run, what's an extra couple grand on top of the loans I'm already going to be paying off? An extra ten dollars a month?

The ticket says I'll be gone from May 21st to August 21st. I'm going to end up missing softball, which sucks, but maybe I'll learn to play rugby or throw a boomerang instead.

I've never really traveled for any length of time, so it should be a pretty good experience.

Huge big news for the sharing on the blog.

Graduating (finally) on May 12th. Going to Australia May 21st.



I know, right?

Chocolate rivers and Gobstoppers.

Today sucked. I ran around this morning before work, got everything together, and waited for the train forever. The conductor was lacking the concept of anything in between go and stop, so I was sufficiently nauseous by the time I got off for work. The entire day was like a war of attrition, boring, seemingly endless, and an uphill battle I felt I couldn't win. On top of that, it was just one of those days when your psyche takes over, emotions and imagination start to run rampant because of the lack of stimulation at work, and you just feel like crap by the end of it.

The rest of the night went surprisingly well, and by the end of it, I felt pretty good. Hung out with Colin and also Brian, who wound up having the night off from work by guessing the number 32. It was close enough to 37, so he came home at about 8pm.

We all started rehashing things somehow, and dragged out old pictures, making fun of our younger selves and pointing out people from our collective pasts. It was kind of fun, and kind of sad. My hair and clothes were AWFUL.

Anyway, great roommates are fun to have. You all should invest in a good pair, on my recommendation.

Learning is good.

We're coming down to the end of the semester, and there's been lots of presentations and papers. In one of my classes, the professor was talking about citing sources when you present data to a class. Without it, there's no way to verify that what you're presenting is credible information.

Of course, if that source you're citing happens to be The Onion, you're probably going to need some help regardless. Yes it actually happened.

No, it wasn't me.

one of the guys.

Bear, Liz's dog, is staying with us for a few days. He's a big happy mutt, who just wants to be around people and play fetch. Right now, he's hunched up against me with his nose resting at the edge of the keyboard. I took him for good walks the past couple mornings, and today we played fetch with one of those longer throwy sticks that lets you launch the ball. Bear was good, and he's ok to be off the leash in the park without running away.

Last night was pretty nice. I picked up my bike from Boulevard Bikes and it rides better than it ever has before. New tires, brakes, bar tape, and everything tuned up and ready for spring. I'm excited.

Brian and Colin spent most of the day cooking red beans and rice, cornbread, big pots of gumbo, and picking up necessities for today's Taylor Family Easter Extravaganza. I helped Colin in taste-testing the cornbread recipe, and consulted the Cast-Iron Skillet Cookbook for some suggestions. We're going to pick up a rice cooker today, because apparently it will increase the quality tenfold. Yeah, rice cookers. What's up.

We went out with our new roommate, Simone, and her sister Helder. I tried the crab cakes from Dunlay's because it was a special and sounded great. They were pretty good, but when she brought the check and I found out they were 22 bucks, I was all, wtf? Anyway, I guess I'll stick to the burgers or something.

Then we all went to the whirlaway for a couple more drinks, and Colin narrowly avoided having to talk to some crazy friend of a girl he met the other night. Simone was immediately impressed with the whirlaway, with all the half-hipster dudes, layers of cigarette smoke, and coolest spanish lady barmaid you can find.

Heading home today to spend some time with the family over the holiday, and get some work done. I've decided that the best part about Easter is the Reeses peanut butter Eggs. Go ahead, try to come up with something better. You can't. I've tried.