It all started about a year ago, when I first met Felicia, I of course asked her where she lived and she replied "Chicago". I was very excited that after 4 weeks at Chien Tan I finally met someone who was less than 600 miles away from me. So I did the natural thing and I asked if I could join her family for Thanksgiving dinner. I was actually very surprised when she said yes as I had only known her a few hours I think.

So I had planned on Thanksgiving for quite a while but when Thanksgiving came around I had no idea where she lived and I really didn't know if it would be OK. So I postponed for a month so that I could visit her at school. But I called a few days before I was going to leave because I was having a bad week at school. I had two computer programs due, a huge math test, and a computer science homework due. So I decided to do the decent thing and cancel. And we agreed to meet after school was finished.

There I was a few days after finals and I got into the car with my friend Amy, and we set out for the great unknown. So there we are just cruising on 94, and as soon as we hit the tolls, the car will not shift out of second gear. I only noticed because the car started to overheat. So we stopped a while and it started to cool off. I thought cool, it is just hot cuz we were driving with the air-conditioning on for a long time, so I was'nt too worried. But needless to say I started to worry as I realized that the car wouldn't go above 30 without seriously revving the engine. So I stopped and tried every home remedy possible, but when a computer transmission fails it really fails. Now I am 60 miles away from Chicago and I am wondering what to do. I get back on the road hoping to get it above 2nd gear and after about 30 minutes I do...right into rush hour traffic. So we are sitting there in traffic as an amazing 9 lanes of traffic goes into about 3 and a half. I dropped my friend off at her friends house and I went to find Felicia.

I finally find the place after being lost in Chicago for a surprisingly short time. I go up to meet the sisters; Felicia; Sophia; Yow-Yow; and Diana.(I think that is what their names were anyway. And we went to Planet Hollywood like everyone should when going to Chicago. So Felicia started the soon to be disturbing trend to pay for everything for me. But hey I kind of paid her back(I got her a waffle maker). So we went back and we played some Scrabble, I was playing for the first time and I was pretty happy when I got "boat" or something else really pathetic. But then Sophia in the quick move did "minions" with the double word score and it pretty much killed me. Afterward (Scores: Sophia 2xx, Felicia 1xx, Peter xx) we watched the Bulls throw a game against the SuperSonics, and we all said that they wanted to stretch it out to a 7 game series and win it at home. I then went out on the balcony and enjoyed the city skyline view of Chicago. It was really neat.

The next day was Saturday and I tried to take my car to the dealership for repair, however nothing is open on Saturday so we ended up walking to the 'el from the dealership for about an hour and a half. Definetly not the 30 minute walk the dealer had suggested it would. After a walking tour of Oak Park, we then went to the Salon there and I got some Black Malva shampoo,and some Rosemary/Mint conditioner. We then took the 'el back to Chicago to meet Sophia at the local Italian restaurant D'amagio's and we had a great meal. We then walked around town a little while touring around Chicago. But before all of this Felicia cut my hair, quite an event as I had not had it cut for over two years and it really needed it.

On Sunday Felicia took her parent out for dinner as it was their anniversary. So I proceeded to have the best Chinese food that I have ever had in my life...and I am Chinese. I think today we pretty much just moved into the dorms at Northwestern University a little and check the sites out.

Monday was the big day in my mind, I call nice and early there at the dealership to see how much the car will be to repair. I prepare myself for the worst...450-700. Nope guess how much??? 5400$$$$ I nearly started to run away on a cross country run from the law, but I called my parents and they understood, apparently it had not been my fault that the transmission went bad, I was just in a bad place for it to happen. So after this ray of sunlight, we went back up to the room and just sat there for a while... But then I am not the one to get down for very long so we went and did something around the great town of Evanston. I went to Felicia's summer class and me as a computer science guy was amazed at the apparent real uses and scenarios that were portrayed in this class. And they were talking about trillions and billions of dollars, kind of neat.

Tuesday was the first day I have ever really gone to the gym and I was blown away as Felicia and Sophia just hit the stairmaster for a really long time...at full blast. There I was just trucking along climbing the stairs at a 1/2 pace and they are moving like a blur and get this, Felicia was even studying at the same time. A far cry from my normal routine. I then went to go lift some wights and then I ran on the treadmill with my big hiking boots, I sounded like an entire company of soldiers going across a wood bridge. We then went to Felicia's econometrics class, and her professor was just nuts about econometrics. She loved statistics too, and she covered my entire statistics experience in about 30 minutes. I just tuned out and went to work trying to learn to program Java(still working on that). So by now I was thinking that I would stay until the car was fixed or I would go home and come back, but my dad wanted our family mechanic too look at it and I said OK whatever.

Wednesday was pretty much like the Tuesday, working out and class, it was a blast as usual. I think Northwestern University is kind of neat after all I go to the biggest school in the world and I liked the idea that it was possible to have people in your class more than once. Plus people were very nice and they spent a lot of money on landscaping.

Thursday was the big day for me to go home. We had to wake up at 7 in the morning in order to make the flight and eat a nice breakfast. We had planned on going to a place in downtown Chicago but it had closed down a few years before. Just goes to show it pays to call ahead, or atleast not use a tourist guide that is five years old. So we ended up going to the Hotel Inter-continental and having some good food and juice. Yeah, but Chicago is really large, it was only at this moment that I saw Nike World, and Sony World. I am not really sure if I would still want to go to these places however...wouldn't it be just like a really long commercial? Well I am sure that it would be really neat. So I think we ended up taking some wrong trains or we stepped on the wrong side of a turnstile or something and we had to backtrack. I had a pictures of me Felicia and Sophia at the airport but I guess when they say it is an outdoor camera you had better believe them. But I made it and I flew back home. But I am going back Sept. 1st with Julie so I will have a second installment soon.

Peter Hsu