Concerts, field trips, half-marathons, and rain storms…

So many things keep happening! I was going to update this blog on Monday, and now… it’s Friday. So… brief summary before pictures!

Things that have happened in the last 2 weeks/since my last blog post:

• Saw Kimbra last Wednesday. She was amazing live. I was pretty much just blown away the whole time by her energy and her voice. Though some of the crowd was pretty rude, most of the audience was cool (though extremely close to me!), and it was overall a really good time.
• We went on a field trip last week (Monday?) to the historic town of Pullman. We walked around outside a lot and looked at buildings and I got some pictures of the greenstone church, which was sort of the highlight of the tour.
• SEMINAR IS FINISHED! We had our last class meeting on Tuesday and turned in our last assignment (besides our research paper of course) yesterday, so now we’re done! Now I can focus solely on my research, so I’m pumped.
• Last night the Newberry hosted Q and Ale, which catered Q bbq and had free beer for those of us who were 21+. My team won free Newberry umbrellas during one of the rounds which was awesome since it was raining when we left to go home. Best/most useful prize of the night!
• Last night also I went to Schubas’ Tavern to see the band Daughter. They were amazing. The opener was good too: Choir of Young Believers. They played about half an hour and then Daughter came on… after half an hour of soundcheck because they’d had a car accident earlier and had to retune ALL their instruments. They were totally worth the wait (and the drenching I got walking from the train to the venue… yay rainstorms!).
• Weather things: It was hot. It’s been raining a lot. It’s been weird weather. Today’s a very October-like day though, so I’m pleased.
• I ran the Monster Dash half-marathon on Sunday. It went pretty well. It was a really fun race — lots of costumes! Only thing I didn’t like was that it was on the lake front trail, so other Sunday morning exercise enthusiasts were quite annoyed with us. I finished in 2:09:15, which was quite a bit slower than I wanted (wanted more like 2 hours), but both my knees acted up and I got blisters on both my feet. Ouch! So I’m not unhappy with my time… but my next race, I am beating my 2:06:25 time from September!
• Last but not least, today I was looking up tickets on House of Blues Chicago’s website and saw that TONIGHT the band The Hush Sound was playing! Tickets were $34 with processing, so I immediately scooped them up! I have wanted to see that band since I missed out in high school, so that was a happy, fateful surprise this morning. I didn’t even know they were touring together again! So that’s after I get off work today, which I’m ridiculously excited about.
• And PS: I am almost caught up Doctor Who. I’ve been a DW junkie this week. It’s the best of shows.

Now pictures!

Greenstone Church in Pullman. It was so pretty!

Also we went to Chinatown and I made this friend!

Kimbra!

Kimbra and Stepkids singing “Call Me” as an encore.

Not the best time, but a pretty darn awesome medal!

It’s FALL in Chicago and everything is so pretty!I love it!

Daughter! (there’s a drummer there in the back) They were so, so good. I hardly even took any pictures. I was enthralled (and also standing behind people a foot taller than me).

On Thursday I got a green wristband from Q and Ale, a hand stamp from my concert, and a wristband for McFadden’s Happy “Hour”. I was 21+ all over Chicago!