Stop Helping Me

This place seems designed to prevent self sufficiency. To get an apartment, you have to have a broker instead of searching ads online yourself. To get a notebook in the office, I was told to ask the office admin (in Chicago there is a supply room where I can go grab what I need). People don’t clean their own apartments, they have a maid. Those with a little more money don’t drive their own cars, they hire drivers. If you plan a vacation, you don’t just go research the place online and book it, you talk to everyone you know who’s been there or is from there (and there will often be many), and they will offer you access to a travel agent they know or a place to stay with a friend or family member. People don’t raise their kids in a nuclear family, they often live with parents who help and have maids who also help with childcare. I went to the grocery store across the street from my apartment, and the shopkeeper told me to give him a call and he’ll deliver so I don’t have to come. Another time, I was painting my toenails and my friend told me I didn’t have to do that myself, I could go and pay and have someone else do it for cheap – but I opted to paint my own toenails. I feel like I must seem anti-social or controlling or even ungrateful, because I want to do things myself, or at least be able to. It feels like micro-delegation here at times, to a point that I can proceed only so far before I have to ask someone for help. Sometimes I want people to not notice me, not offer to help, to leave me alone and not be nice or helpful. I guess I want them to be Chicagoans – I can ask them for help if there’s something I truly can’t do myself, but otherwise I’m left to my own devices.

A couple of more minute things:

Oreos are labeled as a Cadbury product here, instead of Nabisco like they are in the US. Kraft owns both, and Cadbury is huge here, so it just makes more sense that way.

I miss my coffee shop. I wish there were one here that was half as good. On the bright side beverage-wise, fresh lime soda is really refreshing, and mango milkshakes are also delicious (it’s mango season).