New Year: My new beginnings!

My classes for spring semester started last week. Although I was sad to see my vacation come to an end, I looked forward to meeting my new professors. This term, after consulting with my course advisor, I finally chose four courses constituting 11 credits. In addition I am investing approximately ten hours for practical experience and ten for fellowship work.

My classes this week were pretty easy. We primarily reviewed the new syllabi and course requirements. I found all my professors knowledgeable, thorough, and supportive. The course work will be challenging, but after talking to my professors I feel confident that I’ll be able to successfully tackle my assignments this semester. My interactions with my professors continue to affirm my initial perceptions that the faculties at TCS were phenomenal when I was first considering application to the school. I am so glad to be a part of The Chicago School student body.

My Pet Goldfish Terror!

Yesterday night was scary and stressful because silly Nemo and Khubbie (my 2 pet Goldfish) swallowed one of the fish tank gravel. Earlier that morning, we noticed that Nemo was looking sick, would not swim and stayed in one corner of the tank. So, we cleaned the tank and started looking online for some information on types of goldfish illnesses. Then in the evening, while having diner my friend Mandar (from California) and Gina (roommate), I saw Khubbie chocking with a gravel stone stuck in its mouth. We immediately started looking for an appropriate tool that would help us remove the gravel stone off Khubbie’s mouth. We had to be extra careful, as we couldn’t keep fish out of the water for a long time. Luckily we had Mandar, who had fish tank at home and is used to handling fish and so he could handle them efficiently. Finally with the help of nail clippers he pulled out the gravel from Khubbie’s mouth.

It didn’t take us too long to figure out that maybe Nemo has also swallowed one of the fish tank gravel. And, to our surprise Nemo’s condition was even worse as rock had slipped deep down Nemo’s throat. Now, we needed some really effective tool that could slip in Nemo’s mouth to extract the rock. At this time, all we knew was, we have to save our fish from chocking. We researched online and found that Goldfish being scavengers have a habit of digging into rocks in search of food, may be in the process both Nemo and Khubbie inadvertently swallowed the tank rocks. Both my fish were terrified and so were we! We took the pitcher in the bathroom as it had bright lights; we also set the table lamp as focus light to see through Nemo’s mouth, and used a tweezers to pull the rock out. In between the rock extraction process, Mandar had to take excessive care of putting the fish back into the water frequently, so that they could breathe. Eventually, with all the stressful, but diligent efforts we successfully extracted the rock from Nemo’s throat as well. Phew!

We all couldn’t believe that we actually saved our fish. We were happy to see our fish back into the tank, safe and alive! We removed all the gravels out of the tank. I would never be able to forget this eventful night, spent in struggling to remove the rock off my pet fish’s mouth/throat.

Holiday fun!

For the holidays, one of my friends came over to visit me from California. We went to the Lincoln Park Public Zoo in the evening to see the zoo lighting, for which the zoo is famous. I enjoyed the evening at zoo; the magic of colorful lights, soft white snow, and a nice music playing in the background. The zoo has impressive specimens of reptilian and primate world. It is definitely one of the nice peaceful getaways in Chicago.
To know more about Lincoln Park Public zoo visit: http://www.lpzoo.org/

One day we also went to the UIC student union recreation center and spent some real good time bowling and playing pool.

For New Year’s celebration I prepared some chocolate walnut brownie at home and enjoyed a quiet New Year’s Eve diner and wine with few close friends.

Before my actual course work begins, I also utilized my spare time to visit the Office of the Secretary of State facility for issuing my state ID card. The information and forms for Social Security Card, State ID card, and Driver’s license is available on the Chicago school’s website. Most of the necessary information for the international students is available on International Students Service webpage.

http://ego.thechicagoschool.edu/iss

My first white Christmas in Chicago!

The morning of Dec14th, I woke up to see a few inches of snow all around. I was excited to experience the first snow-fall of my life. Chicago has its own beauty in winter. It looks as if everything is made up of white cotton candy. With the help of my friends and colleagues I was well prepared for the winter, I bought good winter coats from Burlington Coat Factory, the one located at Gurnee http://www.yelp.com/biz/burlington-coat-factory-warehouse-gurnee .
The Burlington Coat factory is located at various places in Chicago, which can be found on its website below: http://www.burlingtoncoatfactory.com/

The week before Christmas holidays was full of sweets, cookies, gifts and greetings from friends and colleagues. I was happy to receive my first Christmas surprise from my supervisor, Beth Tinkham, in International Student Services at Chicago School. In the morning when I reached at office to assist her at work, I found a gift box, which looked like a Chinese take out box. The box contained a gift card to Starbucks Coffee and different types of delicious, tempting cookies, including sugar cookies, rum balls, ginger snaps, mint chocolate drops, and citrus macaroons. Later this week I attended Christmas party at Hope institute, my practicum site, and ate additional sweets and cookies including sugar candy, bonbons, truffles, and almond bark. It felt really nice to receive such warm Christmas greetings from everyone. I truly enjoyed my first Christmas celebrations in Chicago. Soon after the celebrations, school closed for the holiday break.