busy thursday

For the first time, I'm falling behind with my BarBri homework, mainly because of grad week and other obligations this week. It's been a great fun-filled week though, and definitely worth falling behind a bit in my studies. Last night, I made three stops:

Joanna's surprise party - Joanna's husband, Mike, organized an awesome surprise birthday party for Joanna. Happy birthday Joanna!

Avec - Lauren's friend Ed is in town, so we decided to take him out to a favorite Chicago late night restaraunt. As usual, the dates were awesome, and I love their focaccia.

The Violet Hour - After dinner, we made our way to Wicker Park to The Violet Hour, a hidden Chicago speakeasy. Although the drinks were pricy at $12 each, the ambience was great and the drinks themselves excellent.

dress-for-weather

This product kills me. I kind of want to get it.

La Crosse Technology WS-9740U-IT-NL Wireless Temperature Station with Remote Sensor and Dress-for-Weather Icons

summer catchup

Looking back after five post-graduation weeks, I've actually had a pretty good summer so far. Given all the catchup, I'll just try to list what I've done so far.

Sun Wah
I've been meaning to check out their Beijing Duck special - $30 for duck served three ways: with buns, as a soup, and as a fried rice. It was actually pretty legit with huge portions, but probably not as good as anything in CA.

Charlie Rose interviewing Karl Rove and James Carville
Even more protesters than the Gore event, but at least there were way fewer annoying hecklers interrupting.


Deepak Chopra @ Kellogg
I haven't read any of his books, but his speech about the role of leadership in building global prosperity was pretty interesting.

Dillo Day 2009
The Decemberists play a free concert in the Northwestern campus.


Cubs vs. Dodgers
Dodgers lose this game, and leave with a 2-2 split with the Cubs.


Rugby Banquet
End-of-year banquet at Timmy O'Tooles for the KFRC - greatest club at Kellogg!


Rugby USA vs. Wales
Over 6,000 in attendance at Toyota Park to see the Eagles play Wales (and unfortunately lose).


Urban Belly
No pictures, but this place was tasty, albeit a bit pricy.

Printer's Row Lit Fest
No purchases this year at the book fest. I'm saving it for SF's Big Book Sale.

Kellogg Korean BBQ - Boo-il Galbi
This was part VI of a recurring Kellogg event, each more wild than the last. Unfortunately, I drove to the dinner and had to leave early before the craziness commenced.


Ribfest
I didn't eat as many ribs as the first time I went, but this time a group of us camped out in the middle of Lincoln Ave. with some cheap store bought beer and just enjoyed the evening.


Wells Street Art Festival
Although I wasn't planning on making any big art purchases, it was still nice to take advantage of some relatively nicer weather to walk around and then stroll back home via Lakeshore.


Whirlyball with the Turkeys

They need to bring this to the Bay Area - it's awesome! Plus, the Jive Turkeys (my Kellogg section) are awesome!


Grad Ball at the Nature Museum
The last Kellogg hurrah before graduation. It's finally starting to sink in that school is over...

Ok, so I'm now caught up and will be back with more summer updates!

long time no blog

I keep meaning to catch up, but can't seem to overcome the hurdle of getting onto Blogger and actually creating a new post. Here's hoping this post creates some momentum!

dead in a day

The grad committee set up a game of Assassins at the law school, and I didn't even last a day. I was actually warned that my killer had asked a friend about my schedule, but totally forgot. I was "killed" two minutes before class was due to start, when I peeked out to check if I was in the right room (I was the only one in class)!

one more day...

One more day until I fly to LA, and three more days until I leave for Peru!

eating frenzy

I know it's been a long time since I last posted, but I've been on a nearly unprecedented eating binge starting the week of my birthday. I'll try to list every where I've been in the past two weeks:

Avec

Lao Beijing (twice!)

Perry's

The Grill on the Alley

Hop Haus

Frontera Grill

Topolobampo

Cafe Spiaggia

And yesterday I went to a really great event - the Greater Chicago Food Depository's First Annual "Soup Off"(recap here) - which was a lot of fun. Also Chicago Restaurant Week has been extended to March 6!

last day at 30

Wow.  I usually amble straight through my birthdays without a second thought, but for some reason thinking that today is my last day at 30 is a bit ominous.  The more I think about it, 31 feels a lot older than 30...  30 is new and fresh, whereas 31 means you've already been in your 30s for over a year :(

Another thing that kind of bummed me out today is that I recalled a bunch of emails I sent to myself before I started law school.  While I was in New York, I wrote emails to myself that would be delivered in one, five and ten years.  Seeing as how I never got the one year email, it means that the message never got delivered, or it got caught in my spam filter.  Either way, it would have been nice to know what I wanted to tell myself earlier.  I think next time I'll just write a letter to myself in Word, and save it somewhere I won't open it.

big fat refund

For the past few weeks, I had been waiting eagerly for my W-2 so that I could file my taxes and get my refund.  Too bad I totally forgot about the stack of mail I picked up and left on my counter last week.  I found it yesterday, and immediately filed my taxes online courtesy of TurboTax - free federal, $9.95 state (at least for us poor students).  I'm looking forward to receiving my huge refund (woohoo for the Lifetime Learning Credit!).

However, chances are that I will blow it all soon on restaurants, camera gear and travel...

weekend update

Another solid weekend.

Friday was Kuma's Corner with Andrew and Tyler. Monster meal as always, although the wait is a turn-off.

Saturday morning I was up bright and early to go snowboarding at Cascade Mountain in Wisconsin.  Definitely way smaller that anything I've been to in California, plus you had to wait longer in the lift line than it took to come down.  Still, it was fun to go boarding and the snow was at least decent - packed but not icy (for the most part).  Afterwards, we went back to our suite at Comfort Suites, and ordered in Pizza Hut.  After a late night, we visited the world's largest Culver's on our way back on Sunday.  The Butter Burger had been on my list, and it did not disappoint - very solid fast food burger.  Also surprisingly delicious on the trip were the fried cheese curds, which tasted pretty much like fried cheese  (surprise?).