Michel Completes His First Semester of Grad School

Let the record show that I, Michel Bigelow, after completing an entire semester, have not yet failed out of graduate school.  I made it from August to December without once being asked to leave the University.  In fact, I am being permitted to come back next semester and continue my studies.  So, in the most basic sense of avoiding abject failure, this semester has been a rousing success.

            In terms of making me a stronger and more prolific writer, this semester has been better than I ever could have imagined.  I have read things I would never have otherwise read and I have written things I absolutely could not have written six months ago.  On top of all that, I have been accepted into one of the most delightful collections artists and weirdos one could ever hope to meet.  The Roosevelt University Creative Writing MFA program is filled with immensely talented people of wildly diverse backgrounds and styles.  I predict that out of the current students in the program there are fifteen future Pulitzer Prize winners, twelve future National Book Award Winners, nine future Nobel Prize winners, eight future recipients of movie deals, and three to five future cyborgs.  I have similar predictions about the amazing faculty, except I only foresee two of them becoming part machine.

            Coming to Chicago to pursue a master’s in creative writing is easily the biggest risk I have ever taken.  Elizabeth and I gave up full-time jobs, financial security, and close proximity to friends and family so I could formally study writing down shit that I make up.  That is insane, yet even after only a semester, I know it was a good decision.  Fall 2013 has been one of the most satisfying learning experiences of my life.

            There have definitely been struggles with things like employment and figuring out which of the eighty-three Thai places within walking distance of our apartment is best (so far none are on the level of Thai Bistro), but overall, I have loved our time in Chicago and my time at Roosevelt.  I am genuinely excited to come back next semester.

            All that being said, Houston, I am coming for your fajitas.  All of them.  Chicago is wonderful, but it’s not really a TexMex town.

Fajitas.

Elizabeth and Michel Visit the Spice Shop

We spend a lot of time in Lincoln Square.  It's a wonderful little small town square in a big city.  So when we realized that there was yet another charming little shop that we had not explored, we decided to pay it a visit on Small Business Saturday.  It was the Savory Spice Shop, and I just happened to need some spices to make gingerbread. 

It's a cute little shop with beautiful hardwood floors and painted wood shelving, warm and inviting with an incredibly friendly and helpful staff.  We've been back twice now, and they recognized us each time. 

That Saturday the shop was fairly busy, but they still made time to show us around the store and explain how it worked.  It's a spice shop.  What more do you need to know, you might ask.  Well, it is a spice shop where you can taste everything!  How cool is that?  So basically, you can walk around the store, tasting whatever spice, salt, rub, herb, curry, or pepper you like and then you just dump what's left of your taste test on the floor.  You might think that the floor was filthy, then, but it's not.  They are meticulous about keeping it swept and clean.  Once you have found your chosen item, you can then take the large jar (in my case ground Madagascan cloves and ground Jamaican allspice) to the center table, and they will measure and weigh your spice for you.  Everything is freshly ground in the morning, and it smells heavenly!

Additionally, they don't just carry traditional spices.  They carry anything you might need from freshly dried cilantro and Hawaiian volcanic sea salt to lavender vanilla bean sugar and ground ghost pepper, the second hottest pepper in the world.  And to top it off, there is always a large pot of hot apple cider with fresh cinnamon sticks for anyone who wants it.  Lest you think spices and herbs are all they sell, they have a wide selection of cookbooks and other cooking related gift items. 

I secretly want to work there.  Michel says it's because then I will be working in a spice shop like Rosalie on my favorite TV show, Grimm (check it out...best show ever!!!), and that is probably true.  But it's also such a cool little store with some of the nicest people in the square.  It's definitely one of our favorite shops now!

Elizabeth und Michel besuchen Sie die Christkindlmarkt

As you've no doubt gathered, there is a strong German influence in Chicago (though apparently not as strong an influence as Polish--our bank advertises tellers bilingual in Polish).  This being the case, there is a large Christkindlmarket, or German Christmas market, downtown every year from the week after Thanksgiving to  Christmas Eve.  This year, the market even boasted its own Christkind, a Christmas fairy or angel, a staple of the markets in Germany.  (Previously the Christkind from Nuremburg has visited for the first weekend.)  The market is always very popular and is beautifully lit at night, but we had been advised to visit during a weekday just after lunch, if we could, to avoid the worst of the crowd.  So we headed down to Daley Plaza around noon for traditional German crafts and treats!

 Kathe Wolfahrt is one of the top Nutcracker makers in Germany, based in the famous Christmas shop in Rothenburg.

 Some of their traditional Nutcrackers

 They also make beautiful music boxes...

 and Christmas scenes.

 The Christmas tree was a little oval shaped, but it was still really pretty!

Some of the other shops carried Black Forest cuckoo clocks, beer steins, scarves, ornaments, and other crafts.  There were also tons of yummy food stalls for pretzels, bratwurst, schnitzel, spaetzel, pancakes, pastries, sugared nuts, and chocolate treats.  Michel opted for a bratwurst with sauerkraut and cherry strudel while I had potato pancakes with applesauce and a Berliner (the custard-filled, chocolate-glazed pastry with which President Kennedy associated himself during his famous trip to Berlin.  He certainly could have done worse; it was quite tasty!).  

Beautiful, handmade clocks in the Black Forest style

A wall of beer steins

The spiced nuts shop: almonds, cashews, macadamias, pecans, walnuts...it smelled heavenly!

These gingerbread hearts were everywhere.

Inside the sweet shop with all of the traditional and popular German candies and cookies.  Our favorite thing was the Christmas cookies--described as "christmascookies".

We had a lot of fun and are looking forward to next year!

Michel Gives a Reading of His Own Work

Sorry, not much of note has been happening in our world.  It has been below 25 degrees pretty much since Thanksgiving, so we've been holed up in our apartment except for the required errands, school/work, the occasional trip to our $5 movie theatre, and a few snowy walks to the square.  However, in the last week, Michel officially finished his first semester of grad school, and, to top off all the writing, he gave a reading of one of his pieces with the other first year fiction students at our favorite independent bookstore, The Book Cellar.  So we ventured out of our hobbit hole into the cold and snow.

The Book Cellar is a great place for readings, first of all.  Half of the shop is a bookstore and the other half is a little cafe with delicious drinks and food.  The wall of the cafe is the shop's magazine wall, and it is in front of this that authors usually read their work.  Several rows of chairs are set up from the cafe to the register on the opposite wall, snuggled in amongst the suggested books display.  The shop is all decorated for Christmas and is a wonderfully cozy place to spend a winter evening.

Michel chose to read an excerpt from his piece, "Superheorism and You", a hilarious how-to guide on becoming a superhero written for his creative non-fiction class.  After introducing himself as the world's foremost expert on superheroism, he discussed why becoming a superhero is the only worthwhile course of action upon the discovery of superpowers along with the intricacies of power assessment.  Everyone laughed and enjoyed the piece, and he received a ton of compliments, including from the director of the program.  Pretty cool!  Personally, I think he was the best one, but I may be biased!

The other five pieces were all incredibly different, ranging from an account of a road trip to a fictional letter from a soldier to his father, and the other authors were all engaging readers.  We've been to a few readings, but I have to say, it's much more exciting when you know the authors!  Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures, and I'm not really sure Michel wanted me to anyway.  I mean, it's not so cool when your wife is taking pictures of your first reading and possibly waving and whisper-shouting your name to get you to look at the camera.  Which I would totally do.  So Michel retained his cool status and I left with no pictures.

This may not be the most exciting post, but I think it was a pretty exciting moment, and I'm super proud of Michel!  Here's to many more readings in the future!