CrazyJohn and the Weekend
I finally got word this weekend (Friday, I think) on my sanitation exam. I received a 99% (79 out of 80 questions) and was given my Sanitation Certificate! Hooray! I am now certified in the City of Chicago and Cook County. And, from what I hear, we have the highest standards in the country... so I could probably get certified anywhere I wanted. What does this mean? That I could pretty much be a manager of a food service establishment anywhere in the country. Great... exactly what I wanted. Oh well... it's another $0.25 raise. If I keep getting quarter raises like this, I might soon actually be able to afford living in the city in which I work. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
Saturday morning, when I was cleaning my apartment, there was a horrible vacuum cleaner accident. Yes, that's right, my vacuum ate my cell phone charger. Oh well... a twenty minute trip, $33 dollars later and it's like nothing bad ever happened. Stupid things that suck!
Speaking of things that suck, Saturday was Moody's graduation. That means that all the Moody students (even if they didn't graduate) had to get out of here. I guess I'm having a pretty hard time with it... I mean, it's basically like reliving the loss of last year: I had to leave what was my home for four years last May, and I come here and make a new home for myself, and everyone (sans Jim, Abby, Andrea, and my Improv class) has just left me. What makes this weekend even weirder (Saturday in particular) was that I was visiting with Sarah, Randi, and Amber... three people with whom I parted ways geographically last year. What an odd weekend in time.
Like I said, Saturday was spent with Sarah, Randi, and Amber (don't forget Jim!). They arrived in the early afternoon and in a "I really know my city" kind of way, I got lost trying to find them. It was NOT my fault. Allow me to explain: I took the L to the Merchandise Mart stop, and proceeded into Merchandise Mart. Because the train is elevated, I started in the building on the second floor. Now... you would think, if I can find an escalator up to the second floor, that there would be an escalator down. You would think that... but you would not be whomever designed Merchandise Mart. I then went to the elevators, but they were locked on the first floor... and there was no one around to ask, as most of the stores seemed closed. You would think a shopping center near downtown Chicago would be open on a Saturday afternoon... perhaps the designer of the building is also in charge of the hours of operation. Anyway... so I walked around and found an overpass between that building and a building which claimed to be the Holiday Inn (where the ladies were staying). So a quick phone call to Sarah teaches me that they are on the 20 millionth floor and the lobby is on 15. Okay... I'll just, wait, um... I can't use the elevator. It only goes up to 3. Oh... that's okay, I'll just use the escalators... oh... they aren't working. Um... okay, I'll just walk up the escalators. >huffing and puffing< Wow... that was ten floors and now I'm on 13... only two floors below the 'lobby' and I've run out of escalators. Oh crap. Time to take the elevators down (and switch elevators at the second floor, because the one I got in doesn't go to the first floor), and meet up with the ladies on the first floor.
Wow... okay, I finally meet up with them and we went to eat at House of Blues. It wasn't as good as I remember it being in South Carolina, but I didn't get anything spicy either. HoBs is all about spicy food. Then I took Sarah, Randi, and Amber back to my apartment... I won't spoil what happened there, but let's just say they were all on my bed. Anyway... I then took them to my new favorite Thai restaurant "Garlic and Chili: Healthy Thai Cuisine". Jim met us and I think we all enjoyed our meals. Hooray for us! We then went to the Brehon Pub and got Sarah drunk (this is almost true)... and that was pretty much our night. Jim and I walked them home and hopped on the L and went our seperate ways.
My way led me to Coldstone. I helped Greg close... he was the only Moody who stuck around because he wanted to see my show on Sunday. So he stayed over at mah place and was really wired or something because we stayed up until 4AM. >wink< What? Nevermind.

And now... My first performance at Second City! (Which just happens to be on the Mainstage)
My class showed up at 10 AM (1 and a half hours before the show) and we warmed up, practiced the "ABC" and "Sit, Stand, Lean" games, and practiced Freeze Tag. Then, when it came to be 11, we tried to find out where Claudia was (as she needed to tell us where to go and stuff), so we split up and searched the old, abandoned amusement park. Wait... that was Scooby Doo... we ended up just going around the Second City and Piper's Alley. We did end up finding Claudia and she walked us through what we were going to do. I signed up to play "Take that back" instead of "ABC". Let's go through what happened, shall we?
-First, Scene Tag. Amy and I were together in scene tag and Claudia asked for a household item for us. Someone said "fork". Okay... we're going to improvise a scene based on the word "fork". Sound easy, right? Yep... okay, so when Amy and I went out for the first time, I said "This is the dirtiest fork I've ever seen in my entire life"... and Oh, the Melodrama! I hammed it up... the piano player started playing a cheesy soap opera run underneath our scene. Basically, I was very happy with that scene, even though it wasn't all that "funny"... the "funny" was at how seriously we were taking the dirtiness of the dishes. It was a good scene, and I was happy with it.
-Next, half our group played "ABC" and did it very well. Then my half of the group played "Take that Back". TtB is a game where we go about doing a normal scene and at points someone will "ding" us and we'll have to take the last thing we said back and say something completely different. Got it? Whatever. Claudia asked for a physical activity and someone yelled "jogging". Great, guy... can't wait to 'jog' for five minutes on stage. And here we go... the good news is that I didn't get winded, even though I was jogging the whole time. The bad news is that the scene wasn't the greatest scene I've ever been a part of... oh well.
-Last, Blind Freeze Tag. I'm not very good at this game. I waited until we were almost done before I 'freezed' someone out. I then proceeded to talk to Tim about two-person push-ups in sort of an homage to Andrea. Then Keith froze us and came in. He crawled away from me looking scared, and I said (in as low a voice as I could) "That's the way it is"... and the lights went down. That was it. It went better than I thought it would, but I'm still not very good at freeze tag, so I need to seriously work on that. Whatever... one down!

I went and saw Troy with Jim... and can I say that I was disappointed in Helen? NOT the most beautiful woman in the world... and Jim keeps assuring me that it's the hardest role to cast (that and Jesus) in the history of film. That may be... but I think they could get someone more attractive than whatever actress they've got.
PS Brad Pitt is still hot (at, like, 40)