I’ve passed the halfway point. The chime of midnight, this past Friday, marked the official halfway point of the MAPSS program. Approximately 15 weeks down. 15 more to go. This has caused its share of hyperventilating. Still, if there is anything that I’ve learned, it’s when the going gets tough, the tough go upstairs and listen to Bon Jovi¹.

I will present my thesis proposal this Thursday. So, within the next few days I’ll publish my abstract to the blog. Hopefully this will clarify all the webcamming.

Here’s other news in brief:

• I thought Zatôichi is a great film. Conversely I was underwhelmed by Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.
• Ossie Davis died. I’m planning on watching Bubbah Ho Tep, which strangely didn’t make onto his CV in his obits, as a tribute.
• Went to an awesome Cultural Arts Center/Bar/Performing Space on Friday night called The Hot House. If you’re in Chicago and enjoy Latin/World Music/Afro Pop you need to check this place out.

¹– This is an inside joke that only three readers of this blog are going to get. But they are three very important readers.

For those who were interested in the Reinhold Niebuhr discussion that has been occuring on the topic I posted a few days ago, I managed to track down his work The Irony of American History from whence the quote came. I’m not going to get a chance to read it for a bit, but I thought those with time on their hands might be interested.

I’m psyched, this evening I’ll be going out for a Chicago Hot Dog at Superdawgs, which is on the other side of town. According to Zagat’s it’s one of the best dogs in the city. More on that tomorrow.

I’ve set up a webcam again to help with researching my Thesis topic. The cam will only be live while I’m at the library and only available through Yahoo! Messenger.

The goal is not to use these experiences as a direct part of my thesis. Instead I’m trying the webcam to assist me in forming interview questions and exploration paths.

So if you’re interest in chatting with a hot, fully dressed, grad student at the library feel free to look me up: rockOn_Matt. I promise I won’t ever appear as a popup in your browser.

To begin to tell this sordid story of things that shouldn’t be seen, I need to first set the tone:

It’s cold here. Not necessarily super cold, like sub zero, but cold none the less.

Good, now that’s established, on to the story. I left the Reg a little before five today in hopes of catching a $1 latte at the Divinity School Coffee Shop. It’s a Friday tradition here at the U of C and one I take full advantage of whenever I can. On my walk through the first quad I notice something strange:

Lots of people lined up on either side of the quad, forming a corridor of sorts. I get a little further and notice this:

I can’t say whether it was NBC or Telemundo who had sent a camera crew to the U of C. Curious as to what might be going on I asked one of the people what was up. They said it was The Polar Bear Run.

“Polar Bear Run… What’s that?” I replied.

“Part of the Winterfest”

“Winter what?”

“Oh… You must be a grad student… HERE THEY COME”

And then they came:

Fifty or more students. Mainly male with a spattering of females in there. All running. All missing clothes. Some all of them… burr…

And the first thing that ran through my mind is: I need to blog about this… Cell Phone Camera, AWAY!

quick aside on ethics: the only reason I photographed this was because I knew that the camera wouldn’t have enough resolution to capture faces. Beyond that, this was clearly a public event and therefore the people waived a lot of their rights by participating. And besides, they’ll all be shown on Telemundo anyway.

So apparently, there’s a Winterfest going on. It’s the type of thing they don’t tell the grad students about )we’re too busy studying). And this Polar Bear thing has been going on since 1983.

Anyway… What can I say. I’m scarred. Especially after watching some of the people do somersaults. Let’s just put it this way… Cold weather is not a friend to the naked.