Sycamore: 14,900

Good Evening America!

I'm blogging to you from the Sycamore, Illinois Public Library! It's a place where community members come to read, learn, listen, and use the wifi because they don't have internet at home. It's an older building and the quiet room (where I currently find myself) is in a large turret on the corner of the building. Awfully romantic. *swoon* I'd just gotten back from a long day on campus and didn't have much of anything to do after dinner so I trotted on over here so I could update everyone on what's happening.

Last Friday I moved into my new apartment here in Sycamore and it's absolutely fabulous. No leaks in the walls, doors, or windows, a working fridge, hot water, soft, clean carpet, nice walls, and working heating and air conditioning (i.e. everything a boy could want). It's not far from campus which makes for a short car/bike trip and it's far enough that I don't have to worry about drunken bros smashing my windows on Friday nights. Beautiful.

Ever since, I've been settling in, meeting new people, learning about my responsibilities as a graduate student/teaching assistant, and soaking up my new environs. Heck, I've been tooling around so much these past few days, I know this place almost like I've lived here for at least a week!

I'm really enjoying my time here, that's for sure. Living alone certainly has its perks and...non-perks. On the upside, I get to run my own show, which is a luxury I've always treasured. I feel best when I am in control of everything from the cleaning of the dishes to the choice of bathroom scents. I know it sounds obsessive and maybe it is, but it works! On the downside, social interaction becomes a little more of a challenge. It requires more proactivity than would living with someone else(s). So sometimes I'll find myself sitting in my living room (which is still furniture-less) without that person on deck to talk to or do something with. Once school picks up and I start meeting people I don't see this being as much of an issue.

Finally, and perhaps foremost on my mind, I've started to wonder how to feel about all this. I'd say literally nothing has gone wrong in the past 5 days. On the one hand I'm petrified in fear, wondering when my good juju is going to run out. On the other hand, I'm wondering what caused all this in the first place? At one point, my mother mentioned how miraculous it was that everything was falling together so perfectly and for the first time in a while I gave some thought to miracles. I'm still not convinced they're real, but this is an awful lot of chance working out in my favor. Also, remembering back to conversations with a good friend of mine in undergrad, the immediate response is to jump to the Judeo-Christian God as the only provider of metaphyiscal/supernatural anomalies but I don't see why the Fabulous Ghost of Freddie Mercury couldn't have been responsible. Or Buddha or whatever. I don't know. Just some food for thought.

Needless to say, this post has gone on long enough and I need to get to planning for class next Tuesday. I hope this post finds everyone well and I'll be back sometime later!

*note: the building in the picture is actually the Dekalb County Courthouse. Notice the lack of "a large turret on the corner".