Getting settled

Friday saw the math “boot camp” come to a close with a two-hour exam, and since I’ve been out of the student life for a little while now I took it, though optional. That brought my preseason to a close, with the regular season starting on Tuesday. In celebration of this, as well as mourning for the last free days we’d have for months, a group of about 10 of us went into Chicago Friday evening. The trip was nice, and gave most of us a chance to try out our free passes to Chicago’s “subway” (it’s in the open air, so should it be “superway”? I don’t know.).

Other than that there has just been more settling in to the new place and new town. Evanston has been good so far, and Chicago seems fun as well. The whole moving process has gotten me noticing the small differences between places I’ve stayed. Wal-Marts not being palaces is one of those differences, an easily noticeable one for an Arkansas native. But much more fun, and one I couldn’t track in Cambridge due to my lack of a television, is noticing the local business commercials. A great friend of mine used to drive his girlfriend crazy (and amused the rest of us) by reciting part of a furniture commercial. Then there are the fun jingles that some local marketing expert writes and that no person with any self-respect would sing seriously (which is why they find those great out-of-work acting talents, who have none). Two local commercials have a tie over the best jingle here: a store called Menards, with a jingle that has much better staying power in the mind because there is only one line of words in the jingle, “Save big money at Menards”; and a flooring store called, I believe, Luma, where a young married woman plays a guitar while sitting on the steps and singing to her floors (much to the amusement of her husband, who is watching a television show that I’m sure she didn’t find entertaining).

That’s all that I have for this week; maybe next week I’ll take some pictures of campus to post.