Grad school auditions, round one

We took off directly after the MSU Orchestra concert last night for Chicago... grad school auditions, here we come! Well, technically, here Andrew comes - this is actually the only one I'll get to go on with him due to conferences and school-related matters. I hated missing a day of school after yet another slew of snow days, but what can you do?

Last night we stayed at a slightly seedy little Red Roof Inn in Urbana...we got there around 1:00 and were up and back on the road again by 6:30. The plan was for us to get into Chicago early just in case we got lost or Andrew wanted to practice some before his lesson. However, the mixture of a full day followed by a full night of driving followed by crappy sleep in a janky hotel made for one sleepy early-morning drive, and we ended up pulling over at a random truck stop and sleeping in the car for a while. After that, though, it was onward ho!

Andrew's lesson today went exceedingly well, which is awesome and bodes well for his audition on Sunday. The professor he worked with today told him he was a "great talent" and that she would lobby to get him a scholarship. It's great to hear hard work paying off...of course, nothing's set in stone yet, but I'm glad to hear him encouraged. Everyone should get the chance to do what they love to do, especially the people I love the most! Right now, he's still fiddlin' away with his practice mute on in the hotel room - since his official audition isn't until Sunday morning, we have a whole day out and about together in town tomorrow, which should be fun. Luckily, I opted for a nicer hotel since I knew we'd be staying longer than a few hours in this one. We've actually been pretty impressed with the Skokie Holiday Inn my trusty friend Hotwire.com suggested...it's really pretty and the room is very cute and comfortable. The bed in here feels like heaven compared to the plank we slept on last night. Plus, there's a huge pool and hot tub, and a little work-out center, so I got double exercise today to make up for the lack of it yesterday. Unfortunately, traveling means eating out - we did pretty well at lunch (Mediterranean cafe) but I couldn't dissuade Andrew from pizza tonight, which of course is our ultimate weakness. I was proud of him for venturing out and eating the Chicken Shawarma instead of just regular chicken tenders. :)

I've been attempting productivity during the spare bits of this trip, and since I'm done with lesson plans and over half done re-reading and re-annotating The Handmaid's Tale for class Monday night I think I'm set to take tomorrow off to just have fun. We may go swimming again in the morning, and then I know Andrew wants to go to a violin (so exciting), but after that our day is clear - we'll probably either just hit up some shopping or maybe go to the Field Museum. I'd kind of like to see the mummy exhibit again since I just finished Rick Riordan's first book in the Kane series, but Andrew didn't seem overtly thrilled by the idea so we may do something else...after all, he is already obliging me on my biggest request. Tomorrow night....wait for it...we're going to the Chicago Shakespeare Center!!! Yay!!! I know that everyone in the world shares my excitement on that one. Seriously, though. I'm embarrassingly excited about going to see As You Like It tomorrow - especially since they have this awesome deal where everyone under 35 gets the $75 tickets for $20. The Shakespeare center is HUGE and it's right on the Navy Pier - reportedly it's one of the best venues for Shakespeare.

Well, until later - I'm off to "Fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world." (As You Like It 1.1)