the cicadas

as you might remember from a lazy saturday discovery channel program (or wait--didn't you spend your lazy saturdays watching the discovery channel?), periodic cicadas are fantastically disgusting looking bugs that live underground for 13 or 17 years and then come up to make a huge racket, find some insect lovin, and then very quickly die as their offspring head underground for another 17 years. perhaps upon hearing this information you thought "how interesting! what a strange life cycle!" and maybe you also thought "but this information will never have any real impact on me". i did. but then, i wasn't planning on moving to chicago and getting married the summer that three "broods" (that's what they call them) would emerge from their subterranean lairs to make really noisy mating calls (they say it gets up to 100 decibels!), litter the ground with their carcasses, and gross out innocent people throughout the city and in any outdoor weddings that might be happening in any of the city parks. like the one i'm planning on having in a month, just at the height of their infestation.

we, the intrepid bandit wedding planners, are going on as planned with our wedding, plague of locusts or no. perhaps someday we'll look back at a wedding overrun with noisily horny bugs and laugh. or maybe we'll end up miserable and wonder why we didn't take God's warning more seriously. i mean, it's a plague! on the wedding day! what else would you expect?

i guess probably we'll look back and joke that we're miserable, perhaps in response to questions people ask about why we have a cicada's molten body framed on our wall (which also sounds like something else we'd do). probably we'll grossly exaggerate the number of cicadas, the noise, and how many we accidentally ate because they ended up in our sandwiches. probably i'm already exaggerating the number of bugs we'll have in our park and how loud they'll be. if you're planning on coming out for our little picnic/wedding, do us a favor and try not to let the facts get in the way of a good story. and...bring some mosquito netting.

shaken, not stirred

the hotel room was in complete disarray. on one bed, the pillow had been heavily stained by something red and the sheets were disheveled, three ominous tarot cards apparently arbitrarily arranged amongst the sheets. the other bed was covered in money, poker chips, and playing cards. women's fishnet stockings and oddly colored wigs were strewn about the room, and the light bulb had been removed from the night table lampshade. in the bathroom, several lines of a white powder were neatly laid out on the counter, and the name "IVAN" had been written on the mirror, perhaps in blood. in the bath was a red-stained shirt and a general disorderliness. a knock sounded very distinctly at the door, six times, just as we'd agreed. "vladimir?" i nervously called out in what i hoped sounded like a british accent. after a moment's hesitation a woman's voice said "...yes?" i rushed to the door and opened it to a group of smiling, middle-aged businessmen and women.

last week i was an actor for go game, a company that specializes in team building and scavenger hunts--"the future of corporate play", they call themselves. i played the role of a secret agent at a murder scene--dressed in a black suit, mod sunglasses, and carrying a three-olive martini around the room with me (i don't have to tell you how it was prepared, do i?). as teams entered the hotel room, taking pictures of the "evidence" in the room, i told them of the crime boss ivan, and how vladimir was the only man who had ever seen him and lived to tell about it--we had met in russia two days prior and were meeting in chicago to review the evidence one last time before he testified in court. but it seemed as though vladimir's vices and ivan's henchmen had been his demise--and ivan would be a free man again.

i like my job as an interpreter, but even if this job hadn't paid way better by the hour, it would have been nice just to have a change of pace and pretend to be a double 0 for a day.

best week ever

let's review, shall we? first i went out to california (read: great weather, inn n out burger, trip to vegas) to meet kim's parents. while i was there i found out i got accepted to med school here in illinois. then, kim and i set a date to get married--june 30th, in chicago. and then we came back to chicago and saw björk in concert. and THEN i found out i got accepted to the urban medicine program and will definitely be in chicago for the next 4-5 years, thus making pretty much exactly what i wanted to happen come to fruition.

oh, wait! did you hear i'm getting married? i am, i am! isn't that cool? you've really got to meet this girl--she's the best one of the whole bunch, and she's going to stick around until one of us dies! AND she's an illinois resident, so she cuts my med school debt in half! AND she doesn't mind the styling twist-tie ring you see displayed so proudly in the photo. AND she's even such a good and kind person that she puts up with me for hours on end without even rolling her eyes, even when i show off my radical dance moves in public (that happens pretty often). you will, of course, be hearing more from kim in the near (and distant) future, so stay tuned for an opportunity to get to know the incomparable, lovely, and utterly fantastic kim roth!

i can't tell if buying a lottery ticket right now would be greedy or just common sense--i'm on a roll!

the big envelope

yesterday while kim and i were driving around california my roommate nate called me to let me know that i had recieved another official looking piece of mail from the university of illinois, and...it was big. he opened it up while i was on the phone with him and began reading:

"dear incoming student..."

...and then, you know, "it is our pleasure," etc. and they even have a seat for me! even though my own state school doesn't. so i guess i didn't have to have the letter in my hands to believe i'd been accepted, as long as someone i knew had it in their hands. so i'm in, i'm in, and all that waiting wasn't just a really long tease. JOY!

i'm so happy to have been accepted, and to be honest a little relieved. the next question is if i've been accepted to the urban medicine program, which will determine if i'm on the chicago campus or the urbana-champagne campus. i'll keep you all updated, but for now i'm just going to have a nice deep sigh...

med school mailroom drama

i very nearly had the momentous moment i've been waiting for the last couple weeks (or months, or couple years, depending on how you look at it) yesterday. the UIC website informed me earlier this week that they'd made their decision about me, and a letter informing me of this news had been sent. so when my friend sarah (my good friend and fellow high school alum who now lives one floor below me) called me to tell me she'd seen some mail from med school in the mailbox i grabbed the nearest train home and listened to my heart beating louder than my headphones in my ears. i was finally going to know! i found my letter and ripped it open, only to find...information on financial aid? nothing saying i've been accepted or not accepted, just information on how i ought to go about applying for fafsa. but...but...am i accepted or what?!?

i suppose it's possible to speculate that these facts would INDICATE that i've been accepted, but i'm not believing anything until i have the letter in my hands. this waiting game, i tell you what. i suspect i've ridden on so many miserable, long bus rides (and waited at bus stops for long, late, cancelled bus rides) just to condition me for these experiences. so i guess i'm thankful, because i feel like i should be going crazier than i am. we'll see what happens when i get back from california...

oh yeah, california! so in a couple hours i'm flying out to california to visit kim and her family. in the short time i've been here kim has progressed from being an especially interesting and fun person to a completely unique person, to a person unlike anyone i've ever met in my entire life. somewhere along the way she's also become my girlfriend and since last week she went home for a bit i've decided to run out there as well. so the next post should have more definite news about med school and maybe some sunny beach pictures.

unless my plane crashes and i die.