Black Bean Burgers & Goodbyes

Vegetarian Black Bean Burger with seasoned thin cut fries

Before heading off to the airport on Monday, Tia Sarah drove me to another sweet restaurant called Wynberries (I'm not sure if I spelled it right).  For the first time ever I ordered a vegetarian black bean burger, and it was actually pretty good. I felt like Sarah Stanley (sarahstanleyinspired.com) while munching on the medley of mushrooms, grains, and beans.
Random burger eating fact of the day: As with most of the burgers I consume, 2/3 of the bun remained uneaten, as well as the pickle.  Just thought I would enhance your life with one of my idiosyncrasies.

Tia Sarah navigated me to the security checkpoint at the airport before we hugged goodbye. :(
Legally an adult, I walked to the gate by myself for the first time. My lonely walk was prolonged by the fact that my gate was like a mile away.
Unlike my flight to Chicago, which had 30 empty seats, the flight to Florida was jam packed. During the last hour of the flight I was able to enjoy a symphony composed of crying infants and excited toddlers. Thankfully, I was sitting in the middle of the plane instead of the back, which as I learned last summer, is a war zone.

After landing in Florida, I was hit with the post-stellar-weekend-vacation blues. I am totally thankful that my parents were able to buy me the plane ticket, but I was saddened by the fact that I had school the next day, as well as 120 days after that. Three and a half months. I can do this.

Before I end this blog, I would like to give a SHOUT-OUT to Tia Sarh for her total awesomeness. Thank-you for feeding me delicious food, taking me to Trader Joe's for the first time (I have been dying to go there), listening to my rambling, buying me a sweater and gloves from North Face so I wouldn't die of hypothermia, not dropping me off at the train station to fend for myself, walking me through the train commuting process, visiting Columbia College with me, buying me a super cute shirt from New York & Co., the list goes on and on.
I would also like to thank Tia Alicia and Tio Arturo for cooking me some delicious food :)  and Daniel for being so intellectual at the age of two.
Hopefully I won't be recovering from an injury next time I come up to IL, so that I enjoy the beautiful running trails and routes up there. Chicago is known as a running city after all.



View of the sunrise from Tia Sarah's balcony



The recap my family has been waiting for

I know that my family is crawling up the walls in anticipation for my impression of Columbia College, so here you go:

• The admissions counselor for Columbia was pulsating with energy and excitement for the school, reminding me of the Columbia representative that I had talked to during a college fair a few months back. Just listening to the guy made me want to send in my tuition deposit and plan my course schedule. 
• Columbia constantly upgrades their technology to match what professionals use in the real world, and boasts a newspaper that is circulated throughout downtown Chicago (The Columbia Chronicle), a magazine, a radio station, and a television broadcasting studio. Columbia's media outlets don't just cover events happening in the College, but all over the city of Chicago. As a matter of fact, The Chronicle is distributed in newsstands next to the Chicago Tribune. 
• If I win a scholarship award between $250-$2000 from a source other than the College (such as an essay competition),  Columbia offers to match my award, essentially DOUBLING the amount of money that I won. 
• Another reason that I love this school is because of their non-traditinal teaching style. Rather than sitting in rows and columns, Columbia's students sit in a circle facing each other, which encourages discussion. Since the class ratio is 17:1, you actually get to know your professor. During the tour, the guides (who also happened to be students) told us that many students score internships through their professor's connections. 
• I also discovered that Columbia is a serious ground for networking. For example, when the College decides to put a theatre event together the fashion majors design and create the costumes, the drama and dance majors put on the performance, the graphic designers advertise the show using photos that the photographers snapped, the videographers capture the show on camera, and the journalists write the reviews. By the time you graduate you have a slew of contacts in every area of communications. This is the stuff that you need in the real world.

Walking to the school, I passed a major network's television broadcasting station. Looking through the glass window, I could see the news anchors' desk, the cameras, and the monitor screens. The studio was dark and empty, but I could imagine the scene coming to life with camera operators, production assistants, and the anchors. I know that someday, when those lights flicker back on, I want to be the one sitting at the news anchor's desk.  This is Ashley......

Urban Recap

We arrived in Downtown around 9 AM, giving me ample time to realize that I was underdressed for 30 degree weather + the windy city's chill factor.  Hailing a taxi, Tia Sarah and I stopped by The North Face store to purchase a pair of gloves and another sweater. I wasted no time putting on these items once they were paid for, slipping them on as the cashier took the tags off. He asked if I wanted to keep the tags in case I wanted to return anything, but there was zero chance of that happening.

(Columbia Story to be written once my shoulder cramp goes away)

By 2 PM we were famished, so Tia Sarah brought me to Elephant and Castle for lunch. What I love about this city is how different the exterior of buildings are from the interior. The outside of E&C looked like a normal brick building, but upon stepping inside we were greeted by a scene resembling a quaint and polished English pub. If I decide to come to Chicago for college, I will have to get over my habit of judging "a book by it's cover." As for what we ordered for lunch, a picture is worth a thousand words. Two cliches in a single paragraph. I need to stop.

 Roasted turkey, bacon, and lettuce tomato tortilla wrap with onion rings

Chicken pot pie with vegetables

Absolutely delicious sweet potato fries

I fell asleep around 8:30 PM after watching an episode of Psych.

My new blue North Face sweater (Thank you Tia Sarah!) and free Columbia water bottle

In the Morning

Wide awake. That describes my state of mind at 4 AM Chicago time. I find that I wake up earlier than usual whenever I travel. It's like I don't want to waste a precious moment of my "vacation" time.
My morning devotions were based on Beth Moore's study Breaking Free, where I focused on Exodus 20:1-21. Here are some of the highlights that I picked up:

• Godly jealousy is being jealous for someone, not of someone. 
• God is jealous for me for my highest good
•  "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above  or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me..." Exodus 20:4-5 (New American Standard translation)
• The original Hebrew word for visiting as in used in this Scripture is paqadh, which means to inspect, review, number...It is also used for taking a census.  The way I understand it, God can take a census and count all the times the consequences of the parents' sins can be seen in the next several generations. He can count those who have been negatively affected by the sins of their parents or grandparents. 

I find the following verse from Exodus 20:6 very comforting:
"...but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."
The richest inheritance that I can ever receive from my parents/grandparents is a treasure of Godly habits, insight into God's Word, and prayer. At the end of the day, what can beat God's lovingkindness?

Chicagoland

My plane landed in Chicago 20 minutes earlier than scheduled this morning,  :D which means that I have 20 more minutes to enjoy my weekend in Chi-town. I am totally grateful that my parents were able to buy me a roundtrip plane ticket to visit my dream college in Chicago.  Now that I think about it, if I do end up attending Columbia College I would probably have to take a major road trip in order to haul all of my stuff. The main problem is that my father and I loathe long drives....so we could decide to either 1) drive up with my stuff, leave me with the car while my dad books a flight back home, or 2) just pay for a one-way ticket and a ton of baggage.

I have nothing to do but dream big dreams while waiting for answers from my scholarship applications to arrive. :) Well, that and keep up my G.P.A.

I am trusting in God to guide me to the right university and grant me the scholarships I need for the school He wants me to attend. I can't wait to experience His plan for me beyond highschool!

Once Tia Sara picked me up from the airport, she drove me to this sweet place called Snax Cafe. I absolutely loved the warm atmosphere (especially since it was 35 degrees outside).

Tropical green tea with honey and lemon slices

Oatmeal waffles with cinnamon apple slices at Snax


After saying hello to Tia Alicia at the Family Bridges office and completing some grunt work for them, Tia Sarah took me to Trader Joes, a market stocked with a ton of organic food. I have heard about this store from other runner blogs, and it was as fantastic as I imagined it to be.

$10 Tips - Starbucks coffee ain't cheap.

Of course, Tia Sarah would have this on her office desk. ^ Love it! 

Arepas, Fro-yo, & Diving

Wednesday began with a delicious egg casserole layered with hashbrowns, sausage, onions, and peppers covered with a melted layer of cheddar cheese. Besides utilizing her baking powers, Tia Sara also displayed her coffee-brewing prowess for the greater good of mankind (or, in this case, a handful of wide-eyed teenagers holding empty coffee mugs and attempting to look cute).
We began our volunteer work as imported laborers around 8 o'clock; stuffing envelopes, preparing flyers for Friday's theatre event & an upcoming volunteer banquet, and organizing a closet filled with miscellaneous items. For lunch, my clan sauntered downtown to a Venezuelan eatery for super-filling Arepas stuffed with shredded steak, black beans, and plantain slices. Erin's notorious habit of eating half of hamburgers, or this case, arepas, allowed me the yummy privilege of eating the rejected half of her arepa.  (:  I adore Spanish food. It's probably genetic or something.
Later in the afternoon we piled into the s.u.v. and rode to Naperville ( aka Prepville). Sadly, the Red Mango there didn't have green tea frozen yogurt, but the pomengranate fro-yo was still pretty good, especially with the addition of blueberries and yogurt chips.  Due to the fact that Wednesday was one of the hottest days of the summer (heat index of 115), we visited the "Beach", a large pool/lake that goes down to 15 feet  at it's farthest depths. The coolest part for me was the diving skills evident in Everyone from ages 5 to 60. People were diving in with the grace of dolphins, while I partially belly-flopped in my pathetic attempt to imitate their grace. I blame this lack of skill on my YMCA's pool, which lacks diving boards, and the unfortunate reality that I never had the chance to dive since fourth grade. (NO DIVING ALLOWED sound familiar?)  However, I was able to coach Tina on how to dive (due to past swim team experience).