Before work begins

This week is nearing the end of the semester in Chicago.  The official last day is the 28th of January, but I will giving my final exams tomorrow so that I have time to grade them and prepare report cards.  I think there will be less F's than I anticipated earlier in the year.  Hallelujah.

I have been having computer problems - starting before Christmas break and contiuing since then, my school-issed HP tablet has been periodically shutting down.  It is scary, because then when I try to restart it, there is a fatal error message regarding the hard drive and nothing will boot up.  In each case, it has been solvable.  So far.  I need to start backing up my files more frequently.

Rachel is in the midst of finals as well, but tomorrow her day will be greatly altered by a visit from Hu Jintao.  Her school is the home of the Confucious Institute, a Chinese-government sponsored entity that promotes Chinese language and culture in the US.  So, he will take a tour of the school during his brief stopover in Chicago.  Naturally the mayor, school board, media, etc. will be there in force.  Rachel said the school will be on lock-down during that time.  Nobody in the halls; students and teachers cannot leave their rooms.  So it seems she will not be able to meet Hu.

A post on Rachel's birthday to come.

-alan

Life update: MLK Day

Thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. and his work years ago - because of him and others in the civil rights movement, we are able to teach in desegregated schools.  And oh yeah, we have the day off today.  Nice perk.

Rachel continues to grow as the pregnancy advances to its 26th week.  The due date is less than 100 days away!  The excitement builds, though I still have not quite provided as much input into nursery colors palate as Rachel would like.  On the plus side, we are down to ~5 names that we are choosing between.  Will we reveal the name once we choose, or will we wait until birth just to keep everyone in suspense?

On the housing front, we are more set now on buying in the spring.  We have done some more touring of potential neighborhoods, and a move north may be more likely based on the availability of housing.  One area with tons of available houses was described by Rachel as "a depressing suburb" so hopefully once we start visiting we will find a nice place in a nice neighborhood.  We will probably start looking at specific houses in around 6 weeks.

Today on HGTV was a marathon of "My First Place."  This show provides an interesting look at different couples buying their first house.  We get to see the horrors of couples who bicker, fight, and disagree as they struggle with a big decision.  There are many unrealistic expectations that are difficult to overcome.  But thanks to the magic of TV, they find (50, 100, 150 house visits later, which of course are not shown) the "perfect" house in the end.  I am interested to see what our tendencies will be once we start looking.  And I want to know if that feeling - that "this is the one" - can actually happen outside of the world of TV.

-alan

Mid-week "don't want to do work right now" update

Above you can see the latest picture of Rachel and her growing parasite baby boy.  It is becoming difficult for her to bend over, and she cannot run anymore.  But otherwise, she is doing well.  You can see her true feelings, captured below:

We attended a diapering class on Sunday at a baby boutique on the north side.  90 minutes of talking about poo - exciting, right?  Well, we learned all about the different type of cloth diapering systems available.  The stuff is pretty fancy, I must say.  I think we will try out a "pocket diaper" - an absorbent microfiber insert, with a breathable waterproof covering.  We heard all the tips and tricks, so as long as we commit to the up-front cost we should have all the know-how needed to follow through with it.

This week at school I am moving back towards more labs.  A necessary step, for sure.  The natives were getting restless, and I feel any self-respecting chem experience should have good lab opportunities.  Of course, it begs the question - is it more important to provide students with fond memories of labs from which they learned nothing, or drill in to them knowledge which is quickly forgotten?  Wow, don't I sound optimistic?  Just end-of-the-semester questions/concerns/soul-searching. 

Basketball season rolls on.  We attended the Northwestern-Indiana game on Sunday, a convincing NU win.  The only downside was the obnoxious Indiana fan behind us who incessantly shouted insults at NU players...perhaps to keep himself distracted from his own team's lousy performance?  At one point, he started chants of "Roll Tide!" during NU free throws.  Not sure why.  Even more strange, an NU fan nearby us at the NU-Michigan State game also shouted "Roll Tide" as a way to insult MSU.  Maybe I am missing something??

Finally, some pictures of the spanakopita that we made last week.  A Greek colleague of mine complimented our creation.  Hooray!

  -alan

Greek night!

Tonight our friend Katy came over for dinner, and we cooked a Mediterranean-themed meal.  Fish, spinach pie, hummus, and baklava.  All were first time recipes, and all worked out well.  Surprising, considering that the first time you try something it does not tend to work out the way you expect.  We have been making more use of Cooks Illustrated, which has wonderful scientifically-tested recipes. 

This week has been an as-expected return to work.  No big difference at school - students are the same, teachers are the same.  I have tried a few non-traditional lessons, with mixed results.  It has been a week of highs and lows.  I had a glowing performance review following a great lesson on Wednesday; I have also had some terrible lessons that have left me discouraged about how very little my students have learned so far this year.  In fact, a colleague today asked me for help with her daughter's chemistry work (she attends another school in the area) and the topic well beyond where we are at.

We are currently watching Northwestern get spanked by Illinois in basketball.  It has been a bad week to be a fan - losses by the basketball team to Purdue, MSU, and now Illinois, and the football loss in the Ticketcity bowl to Texas Tech.  We are die-hard fans, but the losing is hard to swallow.  On the plus side, I attended the MSU game and the gym was rocking when NU pulled within 1 point in the closing seconds.  For much of the game, our view was obstructed by the standing room overflow of undergrads who showed up and milled about like lost sheep.  Apparently they were even turning away late-coming students.  Nice to see fan support increasing....though a few more games like this and it will not be the case anymore.

-alan

Happy New Year!

We are off to our friend Tom's house for a New Year's Eve celebration tonight, our last as DINKs (Double-Income-No-Kids).  So that is good excuse to party hard all night long, right?  On the other hand, Rachel can get as crabby as a toddler nowadays once it gets past her bedtime.  So perhaps an early exit will be in order for us tonight.

Be safe and have a wonderful night, everyone!

-alan

Housing 2.0

Is 2011 the "year of the move" in the Allmen family?

During our time in Michigan, we heard a fair share of housing wish lists from family - and that on top of the condo that my parents will be moving into this spring.

Today, we took one step closer to realizing our own wish.

After a morning drive through one of our target neighborhoods, we met with 2 different mortgage lenders to talk about financing a loan.  We had a lot of questions answered, and now have mortgage pre-qualification forms in hand to talk to a Realtor...when the time comes.  We would ideally close on a house in the early summer, but the question is when to start looking.  Look too hard now, and we may find something too soon.  Wait too long, and we may be left homeless come July 1. 



We have given some thought to neighborhoods - whether to stay in our current location or move elsewhere in the city.  I feel satisfied in staying in the neighborhood, if we can find something in our price range.  We may not, though, because property values remain high and there are less single family homes in the area.  Our experience working in CPS also makes us picky about schools, so Rachel's pregnancy has led us to weigh the performance of the local schools as a factor.

As we have heard time and time again lately, now is the time to buy!  Happy house hunting in 2011!

-alan

Christmas in Chicago, 2010

The Christmas season in Chicago has come and gone, but not without a fair amount of excitement and activity.  As Rachel likes to say, "You're so much fun on vacation!!"  I am hoping that this is a compliment to the amount of fun I initiate on vacation, and not an indictment of my boring non-vacation life...

We got dressed up on Sunday to go downtown for Messiah at the Harris Theater.  It was a lovely performance - Rachel's first time to hear the whole thing.  We loved the quality of the music and the uplifting content (entirely Scripture refering to Christ).  Just the right message in time for Christmas - though it is interesting that tradition has shifted to have this performed at Christmas instead of Easter, since the content is more closely aligned to that holiday.  But I digress.

Since we were downtown, we walked over to State Street to see the Marshall Fields Macy's windows, which are traditionally decorated with some kind of fairy-tale, Christmas-themed story.  I wondered if there was some subtle advertisement embedded, because when the boy in the story who was trying to prove the existence of Santa asked his father, his father replied that if it is in the newspaper it must be true.  Phil, did your people have anything to do with this?

We also went to Chinatown to visit with Solomon, Rachel's co-teacher from China who has since enrolled at a Catholic university in Iowa.  He was in town for the day and it was a pleasure to see him.  He is off to do some work at a Chinese parish in Los Angeles for the holiday, and is thinking now about doing some work in Chicago during the summer.  However, some people are telling him that the south side of Chicago is too dangerous and he must stay away....so we will see.

 
The only problem?  The bitter cold.  But Rachel is well prepared for that these days.

On Monday night, we went to see Sarah and Dave and take part in the "Miller Family Christmas 2010."  We are not traveling this year to see Rachel's parents for Christmas, so this was the opportunity for there to be some Miller fun in Chicago before we went to Michigan. 

It was a lovely dinner - turkey with all the fixin's.  Their Dad would have been fat and happy to eat that food. 

We exchanged some gifts, and got some sweet PJs.  I do not think mine fit.

The night was not without some drama.  Shortly after arriving, the CO detector started chirping.  Sarah paced the apartment, confused as to whether she should be preparing to evacuate the building or get started on the green bean caserole.  Dave then called the city, and the fire department sent a truck over with its lights blaring.  The massive, stereotypical lieutenant barged in and assessed the situation while his sidekick trailed him with CO detector in hand.  They stayed for 10 minutes or so, but clearly were not overly concerned with the potential health risks.  They recommended opening a window, having the gas company check the oven, and left with some passing remarks about the dangers of new windows locking up a house too tightly not allowing fresh air to circulate. 

Merry Christmas!