the news, from Champaign IL
no longer having the patience for story-posting, i must provide you with more of my patented bullet-points:
-Caitlin and i moved across the country, from California to Illinois. as i had previously predicted, moving out was the hard part - by comparison, moving in is a snap.
-Neb, Caitlin's lizard for the last 7 years and a reptilian companion of mine, passed away on the first day of the move. we're not quite sure what happened, but it was hard on me, and much harder on Caitlin. we buried him in a picturesque and appropriately arid part of Nevada. Rest In Peace, little guy.
-the eastern half of Utah is incredibly beautiful, and everyone should try to go there if at all possible.
-Nebraska is every bit as Nothing as it's cracked up to be.
-Faust does not like car rides.
-my beard has become a force to be reckoned with, though it's still more...all over the place than i would like it to be. amusingly enough, the professor for whom i will be TA'ing at UIUC also has an awesome beard.
-we arrived at our house in Champaign. it's a 3-BR/2-Bath half of a large brick duplex, and it is empirically Awesome. it's about 95 years old, and has original wood paneling, weird light-buttons from the 70's, crazy amounts of storage space, all-hardwood floors, and a giant basement and attic. we've already put in a bunch of new furniture including a beautiful dining room table, and Caitlin's family brought down all our boxes of stuff today.
-we are, for all intents and purposes, living with a ghost. there is a young man who is sharing the house with us until August 15th - the remaining one of the three previous tenants - and he is truly bizarre. he never ventures out of the house, and very rarely out of his room. he looks like your standard pale, skinny, long-haired nerd-gamer, which might suggest some common ground, but if there is any such connection we haven't discovered it. he speaks as little and as softly as possible, has absolutely no expression or affect, and appears not to be interested in the slightest that two strangers have moved their cats and a ton of stuff into his home. i've tried extending a couple of conversational olive-branches, but it's a little like trying to be friendly with a wild animal - just no acknowledgement of human connection whatsoever. he doesn't seem like anyone we should be worried about for any reason, but nevertheless, i will breathe easier after he's moved out.
-Champaign is a really nice town. the neighborhood we live in is gorgeous, and the community seems to have the right balance of midwestern down-to-earthness and university town hippie-dippie idealism.
-i start my TA position in the Sociology department two weeks from Monday, and my own classes a couple of weeks after that. i am both excited and apprehensive.
you heard it here first.
-Caitlin and i moved across the country, from California to Illinois. as i had previously predicted, moving out was the hard part - by comparison, moving in is a snap.
-Neb, Caitlin's lizard for the last 7 years and a reptilian companion of mine, passed away on the first day of the move. we're not quite sure what happened, but it was hard on me, and much harder on Caitlin. we buried him in a picturesque and appropriately arid part of Nevada. Rest In Peace, little guy.
-the eastern half of Utah is incredibly beautiful, and everyone should try to go there if at all possible.
-Nebraska is every bit as Nothing as it's cracked up to be.
-Faust does not like car rides.
-my beard has become a force to be reckoned with, though it's still more...all over the place than i would like it to be. amusingly enough, the professor for whom i will be TA'ing at UIUC also has an awesome beard.
-we arrived at our house in Champaign. it's a 3-BR/2-Bath half of a large brick duplex, and it is empirically Awesome. it's about 95 years old, and has original wood paneling, weird light-buttons from the 70's, crazy amounts of storage space, all-hardwood floors, and a giant basement and attic. we've already put in a bunch of new furniture including a beautiful dining room table, and Caitlin's family brought down all our boxes of stuff today.
-we are, for all intents and purposes, living with a ghost. there is a young man who is sharing the house with us until August 15th - the remaining one of the three previous tenants - and he is truly bizarre. he never ventures out of the house, and very rarely out of his room. he looks like your standard pale, skinny, long-haired nerd-gamer, which might suggest some common ground, but if there is any such connection we haven't discovered it. he speaks as little and as softly as possible, has absolutely no expression or affect, and appears not to be interested in the slightest that two strangers have moved their cats and a ton of stuff into his home. i've tried extending a couple of conversational olive-branches, but it's a little like trying to be friendly with a wild animal - just no acknowledgement of human connection whatsoever. he doesn't seem like anyone we should be worried about for any reason, but nevertheless, i will breathe easier after he's moved out.
-Champaign is a really nice town. the neighborhood we live in is gorgeous, and the community seems to have the right balance of midwestern down-to-earthness and university town hippie-dippie idealism.
-i start my TA position in the Sociology department two weeks from Monday, and my own classes a couple of weeks after that. i am both excited and apprehensive.
you heard it here first.