Scandals, politics, and film.

For those of you who seem to think all I’m doing in the Windy City is having fun…well, you’re right! But I do actually have classes, even if we do fun/interesting things during them, like go on a boat tour, go to a town hall meeting, etc. I have readings for each class session, and we have a lot of writing, as well. After every seminar (usually twice a week) we write a 3-5 page reflection. This is in addition to any other writing homework assignments, like the 4-6 page paper I had to write for tomorrow (which actually ended up being 8 pages). It’s a lot of work, and a lot of fun and I feel like we always have something to do. It’s stressful and a lot more difficult than the block plan is at CC, because we’re doing everything all at once. The work isn’t necessarily hard, it’s just that there is a lot of it and not a lot of time to do it in.

This past week in Precept we met with John Keller, campaign manager for Toni Preckwinkle, the Alderwoman of our ward. She’s running for the Cook County Board, which is evidently really important. We’re going to meet with her directly soon (maybe this week?). In our other Precept session we met with one of the founders of the Urban Studies Program, Jody Kretzmann, and he talked to us about Asset Based Community Development.

We only had one seminar session last week because Miss Dorothy, who teaches it, was recruiting at CC. Funny, huh? That class was at Northwestern University Law School, where we attended the Human Rights Forum about the Jon Burge/police torture scandal going on now. Earlier in the day (Thursday) we went to a protest rally put on by victims of police brutality and their families.
Friday was our fun day, our core course day. Core course goes from 9:30 am until 4 pm, and all the students from all three programs meet up. This is the only class we do this for. This past Friday we spent the morning talking about Chicago politics. We met with an alderman, and he showed us around the mayor’s office, his press conference room, the city council’s chambers, and other cool places.

Then in the afternoon we went on the Chicago Film Tour. This is a bus trip with a film critic tour guide. We traveled around the city looking at all the places that had been featured in films, and then we’d get to see the film clips on little TVs. It was really cool at first, but then it got a little repetitive, since it was 2 hours long.

Me on the film tour with some cool sunflare...

We have lots of big plans for this week (including my birthday!) and I know it will be a lot of fun. But at the same time, we have four seminar meetings this week, which means four 3-5 page reflections, plus two assignments due for core course, plus readings for every class, PLUS a new big project for precept. And I haven't even started my internship yet. It's fun, but it's school too, and a lot of work.