Chicago, that's my kind of sandwich.

This time tomorrow, I’ll be in Chicago. Most my winter visits there are spent under five layers of wool, trying to figure out if the lack of feeling in my toes results from either hypothermia or circulation cut off from excessive layering. The Windy City just doesn’t offer much in January, EXCEPT for one thing.

Italian beef sandwiches.

Years before I visited Chicago, my boyfriend would tell me how “real” Chicago Italian beefs are the best food on earth. I dismissed him entirely; I grew up in Philly, how dare any Midwesterner tell ME about good sandwiches? I’m not even much of a meat eater anymore: my idea of good eatin’ is cheese topped with cheese dipped in ranch. But oh my gosh, the boy was right, so right that I had to go and marry him. Italian beefs would make an atheist believe in God. And I shall eat my body weight in them this weekend.

I Wanna Rock 'n Roll All Night (and study every day)

When I was six years old, my mom gave me a cassette recorder, a microphone and a blank tape. It provided this budding rock star with the beginnings of her recording career and her mother with a few hours' peace and quiet downstairs. And what did this rebel have to express? An anti-establishment view of coloring beyond the lines or perhaps an angry diatribe against peas? Not exactly.

"I love school! School! School! School! I love school sooooo much, I wish I could go everydaaay!"

I've been a nerd all my life. It's only gotten worse.

After spending a year watching the clock tick down the hours until I achieved my big goal (in-state tuition rates), I finally enrolled in a Masters program in English here in NC. Last week I arrived on campus to handle all the business of starting a new school. As I pretended to gripe my way down my checklist, my face betrayed my attempt at cool indifference. The grin in my student ID photo makes the Cheshire Cat seem sullen, the expression of one secretary showed she wasn't accustomed to such enthusiasm in the parking permit line, and my stack of new school sweatshirts and regalia rivalled that of the freshmen parents'. When I entered the bookstore, the scent of new textbooks greeted me (say what you will, textbooks have a great smell), and it took every ounce of self-control not to run like a madwoman toward the books, arms flailing.

Despite my lifelong love for all things academic, I didn't fully appreciate college while I was an undergrad, especially initially. I'd focus on my lack of memorization skills in geography, my sheer hatred of geology lab, or how the writing in my head always seemed so much better than the words that spilled onto paper (my singing? very much the same, and I've got the cassette to prove it). Now when I walk on campus, I notice and savor all of it. It feels both exotic and strangely familiar, almost like a movie set of my college life, only with a different cast. I smile at recognizing these strangers, at recognizing past versions of myself and my friends in them: the tight pack of girls talking so quickly and excitedly that the only decipherable words are the occasional, "I KNOW!"; the guy sitting out on the dorm steps with a guitar, trying to impress women with knowledge of a chord; the two students smiling through that awkward yet wonderful friendship-falling-into-flirtation moment. Even the bulletin boards seem like movie props; someone needs a roommate, used textbooks for sale, anyone driving to Altanta this weekend? I walk in a near-daze, recognizing every inch of my new surroundings, but seeing them in a fresh way. I even view my class and its course syllabus differently; less in obligation and more in opportunity.

I love being a student again. It just fits. Humanity should feel grateful there still aren't cassette recorders around, because I've got the makings of "I Love School: The Remix" floating around my head.