It amazes me how much the weather can positively affect one’s mood. Once again, we had another warm day here in Chicago. Temperatures reached almost 75 degrees, and everyone was out even though it was a Monday. This is definitely one of the benefits of a COVID world- being able to work remotely. For the past several weeks I have been trying to find a tattoo artist within the city, and it just so happened that one was free Monday morning. I got to start my day with coffee, get two new tattoos (that turned out amazing and I love), and then walk to the beach just two blocks from my apartment to lay out and work on stuff for my internship as well as for class this week. Afterwards, I finished the day by making a new pasta recipe and watching a Marvel movie before bed.
Another fun event I have attended within the past week was an Opera. For my arts class we got to finish out the semester by attending Tosca at Lyric Opera House, and it was a really cool experience. I am definitely not the biggest fan of Opera by any means, but it was still a once in a lifetime opportunity that I appreciated.
It is so strange to me how fast this time is going, and maybe that is representative of city life or maybe time just seems faster when you enjoy what you’re doing. I will be honest when I say that I have not really had any huge academic takeaways while studying here, but my personal growth and awareness of the real world has been tremendous and something that I appreciate so much. It’s going to be really strange to come back to Hope and the small bubble of Holland for another year before I graduate, and I look forward to seeing how this experience will change the way I go about my final year at Hope.