Winterscape

Our patio, covered in snow. You can barely see the kitty yard stake - he's covered in snow!

And this is us at the Lincon Park Zoo - they do Christmas lights all over the zoo, and it's really beautiful. It's also free. So cold the polar bears won't even come outside, but free.

City Living in the Winter, Take 1

Ok, so it snowed. And snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed. And that much snow had to go somewhere, so it definitely stuck this time.

This snow taught us a few truths about living in the city during winter.

Truth #1: Like air, food and water-proof winter boots, garage parking is an essential. It doesn't matter what premium they tack on to your rent or mortgage - suck it up and pay it. Totally WORTH EVERY PENNY to not have to dig the Mini out of the 15-foot snowbank.

Now you're saying "hey, I saw the weather - you didn't get 15 feet of snow!" True, but here's truth #2: snowplows. Yes they are awesome. Yes you only want to drive after they've cleared the road for you. But here's something you don't realize until you see it in person - where does all that snow go? Answer: on the side of the road. Creating 15-foot snowbanks. And if you don't have garage parking, guess where you park your car?

We love the Mini, we really do. Even last night, I yet again managed to parallel park into the world's tiniest space. As Jonathan claimed I couldn't possibly fit, I laughed evilly and showed him that the all-powerful Mini can fit ANYWHERE. But we have learned that the Mini is not so good when it comes to the 15-foot snowbanks, even when the spot is, say, the size of our entire block.

Which brings us to truth #3: our neighbor owns a Mini and a Land Rover. This man is a GENIUS. Jonathan has decided that we should open our own dealership for the city with a new kind of lease: a Mini or SmartCar for the summer, and a Hummer for the winter. Best plan ever.

Change (the more mundane kind)

There have been a lot of changes over the last couple of months, and I haven't blogged about them because, well, I'm busy. Business school is hard.

First, I no longer attend the GSB (as we used to refer to the U of C Graduate School of Business - clever, eh?). A very very very very rich alumnus donated $300 million to our school and they promptly renamed the school after him. So I now attend the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. To be refered to as 'Chicago Booth' or 'Booth,' but never 'BSB.' The guy is actually pretty interesting, so feel free to google David Booth and see what you come up with.

The second big change is the weather. It's gotten cold here and we've actually seen snow TWICE!! Nothing's sticking yet - mostly just gigantic snowflurries that disappear before they even hit the ground. And every time we turn on the Mini it plays a funny sound and displays a little yellow snowflake on the dash. Yeah, like we don't know it's freezing outside.

In addition to the heavy coats, gloves, hats and scarves everyone knows you need in a cold climate, we've discovered two other cold-weather essentials: heated seats in the car and a heated mattress pad. Of course, we used the heated seats when it dropped below 60 in Dana Point, but the heated mattress pad is entirely new. Oh, and it finally got cold enough for us to figure out how to operate the fireplace, but not before we almost threw out the gas logs. We just assumed the jerks who lived here before us left old logs in there, but noticed that they seemed awfully heavy (like stone, maybe?) when we went to throw them out. Disaster averted.

So up next for us: Jonathan will take a trip down to St. Louis to visit his friend Rich, I will be finishing up finals and first quarter (hallelujah!), and then I'll be heading to Minneapolis on a recruiting trip for a few days. Because you know, Chicago's just not cold enough for me.

Hallelujah

Back home, exhausted and exhilarated, from Grant Park - it's pretty amazing to have been at the center of tonight's events. It was like Mardi Gras, but less drunken and stumbling, more calm and celebratory.

After having a good bit of hate spewed in my direction (and random spewed hate that just landed on me by chance), it's mostly relief I feel tonight. I can stop, at least for the moment, asking what it means when it seems that the majority of your countrymen despise and belittle you for your political beliefs.

I get that not everyone thinks the way I think. I get that there are plenty of people with valid beliefs guiding them to vote differently than I did. But what's most disturbing to me is the ugliness and hate - not only in the election and on the national stage, but in my own personal life. To be told that I must not love God. To be told that I'm stupid. To be told that I've been duped by a smooth-talker, because I clearly can't think for myself. To have my life and accomplishments to date trivialized because of what I believe.

One of the things I most respect about Barack Obama is his faith - his faith in our country and in the American people. Over the course of this election, I've admired him for this unwavering faith, even in the face of vile rumors and outrageous lies. I struggled to keep that faith, and the attacks on me were nothing compared to the attacks he endured. But tonight, some of that hope for America, that faith in each other, is beginning to be restored.

Lessons learned in Miami

Jonathan and I spent last weekend in Miami for a wedding (actually, we spent most of the weekend just trying to get into and then out of Miami, but that's possibly a post for another time and will involve many curse words - just a warning).

Because we spent one night more in Miami than originally intended, and because our luggage was being held hostage by American Airlines for that night, we found ourselves in need of a few toiletries and a t-shirt or two. I called Target only to find out that they close obscenely early on Sunday nights. So I called Wal-mart (desperate times and all). Somehow I got Sam's Club instead, but the nice man answering the phone decided to help me anyway.

So I ask him "What time does Wal-mart close?" And in his absolute nicest 'oh this poor dear just ain't so bright voice' he tells me "Wal-mart doesn't close, ma'am."

For some reason, we found that pretty hilarious, and now when anyone asks a simple (or dumb) question, we find ourselves responding with "Wal-mart doesn't close, ma'am."

Lava

Introducing the newest member of our family:In an attempt to keep with the weather theme in naming our pets, we changed her name to Lava; the name she came with (Gladys) didn't really roll of the tongue so well.

One of the big reasons we adopted her was for Mr. Squall - with me in school and Jonathan working, he's going to be home alone a lot. While it seemed like a little friend was a great idea, so far, he's not so impressed. Apparently he doesn't think she's as cute as we do.

"It's the economy, stupid" or just the stupid economy?

For those of you not involved in MBA school, here are some rough estimates: typically, out of an average MBA class, about 40% of students want to go into consulting, about 40% into investment banking, and the other 20% of us are apparently just screwing around. At least, that's how it USED to be.

Just how bad is it? So just remember that 40% of my class is about 200 students. And that those investment banking jobs are the most lucrative - those kids pay back the $150k they racked up in loans in no time. I attended a 'pursue your passion' Career Services session with 60 or so of my closest friends this week, and one exercise asked us to choose a function we're interested in and analyze a job description. Marketing? About 10 hands up. Consulting? Another 20 or so (right on target). Investment banking? 4. No, not 40. FOUR.

At this point, I'm tempted to laugh evilly and say 'screwing around looks pretty good now, don't it, you quant nerds??' But then I realize that now I have to compete against all those kids for the jobs I want. F&$#ing economy.