Mean Zanderveen: Senior Social Work Student from Calvin University 
Hello beautiful people! I am currently reporting from my Canterbury Court Apartment room. My room is on the 12th floor and is quite large. My general living space contains a twin bed, a kitchen, a massive closet, and a bathroom. My room is also next to the “refuse” room which is convenient for when I need to take out the trash.
When I open my curtains, the very first thing I see is a taller apartment complex. I feel like Jeff from the movie “The Rear Window”, a man confined to a wheelchair who spends his days observing his neighbors from the confinement of his apartment room. I too find myself occasionally glancing at the other apartment complex to observe what I see. I do this mostly out of curiosity, but also because it’s the only view I have.
Anyways, the first 2 weeks of my internship have been about familiarizing myself with my new environment. I walk to my internship almost every day and one thing that shocked me was the amount of jay walking that occurs! I guess it’s shocking because I come from Los Angeles where jay walking is not as common because of the busy traffic and because of the expensive fines.
Another thing that stood out to me was the Chicago transit system. I had the opportunity to ride the red line and brown line to another part of town during orientation which was a new and exciting adventure. The train only contained a few amount of people due to Covid, and I have to say, I am really impressed with the precautions Chicago is taking to keep its residents safe during the pandemic. I want to become familiar with the transit system because there’s so much history, architect and cultural foods in Chicago that I want to explore! So I hope I get the chance to when there’s free time. 
Well, that is all for now, but I will share more of my experiences in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!