Settling Into The Job And Preparing For The Next Step

I've decided that so far I like my job. Everyone is so nice. They are always smiling and look relatively stress-free. Dealing with organ donation means dealing with people who are both receiving and giving organs and tissue. That means you deal with death. That could make for a lot of unhappy or indifferent or jaded people, but so far that's not the case.

In medical school, being in the emergency room was exciting, but also draining. I will never forget the night a 21 year old arrives at the hospital already dead. The response of the doctors and nurses was probably my second major indication that perhaps medicine wasn't for me. In my current job, the response is much better. Death is sad, but something positive can come from it. That works much better with who I am as a person.

And on to the next step. What is that next step? Why I have to find an apartment for Easy and I. And I have to find a way to break that news to my parents. My friend Bad pointed me in the right direction for where to start.

So far, I know I want to stay in the city limits of Chicago. I'd prefer to live up north because that would work better for me travelling to and from work as well as Easy going to gigs. But living south would be closer to our friends, family, and church. I think being up north might be better for Easy so he maintains that feeling of being off on his own and not so tied in to his people. It's not that he wants to be away from them, it's just that he's eager to form his own life.

So where would we live? I love Rogers Park and I hear Ravenswood or Andersonville would be right up my alley. Where are these areas? Andersonville is around Ashland between Bryn Mawr and Foster. Ravenswood is around Lawrence and Ashland. Rogers Park is around Touhy and Clark. The question would be how much apartment could we get for our money. We have to save up for whatever the next step will be, but I need, I need to be comfortable in my surroundings.

Ideally, I'd want a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment circling 1000 square feet. Paying around $1.00 per square foot sounds reasonable to me. But I'm learning this all from scratch. I've only searched for Chicago apartments occasionally over the years, and this will be the first time it has to produce real results in just a matter of weeks. Literally, like four weeks. I guess I'll start looking at options and that will help decide the step we take next.

There are some interesting looking places. Like this.
 

pics from the Apartment People


I still don't know what's going to happen next. But the apartments don't look terrible, they aren't completely out of our price range, and the location would suit what Easy and I had discussed. I do love shopping of any kind.

Any suggestions for finding a great 2 bedroom apartment in Chicago?