Day 4: Who even invented tollways?!
For all you Corvallis/Albany natives:
Have you ever gotten on highway 34 or highway 20 and thought to yourself "Gee, this highway is so deplorable, I really wish that I was charged a small fee every time I got on it so that the city could 'maintain' it!" ? What's that you say? That's what our tax dollars are for? Yeah, I am aching to give a good kick in the rear to whoever deemed that to be a good idea. However, that is one of the many ways that I've noticed that the Chicago area is different than Oregon. Aside from that there are the other small details of sales tax, pumping my own gas, HIGH gas prices, and SIDEWALKS( or the lack thereof)! And bike lanes. But this whole experience has really opened my eyes up to how blessed I was to be living in Oregon...the rest of the U.S. has to deal with this stuff on a fairly regular basis! Oregonians are spoiled!*
*But I would say we make up for it with the amount of rain we get, yeah?
On Tuesday and Wednesday I had orientation. Let me tell you, I have never seen so many people that look like they belong in a J. Crew catalog! People are very well dressed here. I learned about professionalism, how important it is to be professional, why professionalism is best, what happens when one is NOT professional, etc. As you can see, professionalism was the primary focus of orientation and this university in general.
I discovered that there are places that deliver food, not just pizza! One such place was a cute, little hole-in-the-wall place called Thai Cafe which has fantastic thai cuisine. I may or may not have already eaten there two nights in a row...
You know how reading the law in the old testament reveals our need for a Savior? Well driving the streets of Chicagoland has revealed to me my need for a GPS! For someone who considers themselves to be very good with directions, I am quickly discovering that when I get a car, I will definitely be needing some sort of navigation device. My dad's friend Frank came to Downers Grove to pick me up and drive me around the area. We did NOT have GPS and we DID end up in some ghetto suburb town that was somewhat reminiscent of a cross between northeast Portland and 8 mile...
For those of you that was wondering, a certain Morgan Joyce, a wonderful 3rd year pharmacy student, very generously offered to take me to Target so I was able to get some much needed room amenities as well as PILLOWS to lay my weary head! Hopefully you all were not losing any sleep over that, but just in case you were, rest assured that I am resting well :)
Tomorrow(friday) and Monday are my last 2 days off before school starts! I think me and my friend Nina are going to try to go into the city and check it out. I have been really encouraged by your prayers and words of encouragement so keep them coming! Stay tuned for why I decided to shave my head!
Eva-you're the first blog I've ever read more than one time! Taylor showed it to me the other morning and we've decided we're going to keeps tabs on you're life (we're slowly moving into the creeper stage of married life of living vicariously through other peoples' lives.....you're our first vicarious victim). When I first came to Salem to go to Corban, I didn't know a single person in the entire Northwest. I didn't have a clue about Northwest culture or how it worked. All I knew was I was carless, on the edge of town, with no public transportation. It was at that point when I was feeling least in control of my life that I was forced to open myself up to God and his provisions........and to make friends with people who had cars :) One bit of non-spiritual redemption though: people kept talking abut Dutch Bros and I literally had NO idea who they were. That's right, "who" they were. I was under the impression for a month or so that the Dutch Bros were some obviously Dutch brothers that attended Corban who lived off campus. Everyone kept telling me to go there. It wasn't until I was with a group of friends and they decided to stop by Dutch Bros that I finally got to experience the magic of the place that had everyone talking on campus. I had visions of an epic house filled with epic men of God, not blue windmills and pink straws. It finally all made sense and I kept my surprise to myself because I didn't want to let the cat out of the bag about my biggest PNW fail. It's a happy ending because Dutch Bros gives free drinks to people who've never been. Those blue windmills endeared themselves to me quickly. So moral of the story-I hope Chicago offers a Dutch Bros equivalency experience, because it's worth smiling over in slight embarrassment. Also, I just remembered, the Civil War signs I see everyone are NOT, and I repeat NOT Oregon's love of Civil War reenactments.
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