What happened here?!

Well.. uh..   We got busy again?

School has been exhausting, as evidenced by my inability to follow through with the idea of reliving out AT experience week by week, 52 weeks later.  Sorry about that.

We've really been killin' it at school though.  Roxanne made Dean's List for Spring 2010.  I am not as awesome as she is with grades, but I'm really loving grad school, making the best grades I can and connecting with a lot of really smart people, hoping it rubs off.

Summer has been even busier than spring was.  Rox is taking 20 hours.  Twenty.  That's all I have to say about her.

I'm in for nine hours over the summer.  I wrapped up my Summer I course, Analysis of Energy Factors, four weeks ago.  Summer II is in session now, and I am taking a web-based course, Building Healthy Communities.  It's an incredible amount of work and reading, but it's really developing my sense of purpose in the planning world.  I won't go into detail right now, because I feel like I am being really boring, but I hope to expound later on.

I'm also venturing out on an Independent Study this summer, one that requires me to head to Chicago for a week to explore.  I'll be looking for evidence that a plan from 1909 still has relevance 101 years later and beyond.  I've been reading and outlining Daniel Burnham's Plan for Chicago since summer began and have a decent idea of what he was trying to do.  This Saturday, I will walk to the corner of Nationwide and High and get on a bus headed to Chicago.   Six hours later, I'll be at Union Station in Chicago, without a car and without a hotel reservation.

Just to up the stakes a bit, I wanted to rely solely on public transit and generosity in a big city.  I've cheated a bit with the generosity, because I've already found two generous people in Chicago by reaching out to them via couchsurfing.org.  If you're into traveling on the cheap and getting to know new people, you've got to check out this source!  Basically, people offer up their couches for travelers to call home for a short stay.  They do it out of generosity and a love for life and travel - that's it!  I will be crashing at two different homes; both belonging to Urban Planners willing to help out a grad student in the same field.  It's going to be great!

I'm really overwhelmed with studying this plan before I go, planning my trip, and keeping up with my online course - but you know, that's just how things go.  I'd love to say that I'll blog while I'm out there - but it's probably not going to happen.  I hope to become an active blogger again after August 25 - the last day of my online class.

Until then, it's school, school, school!