Ocean Beach

 

Not sure how much more I can say. This has been so, so much fun. I can't believe I'm moving next week.

Also, the startup I'm working for did this for the week after the Supreme Court ruling. I kinda love San Francisco.

(Link is no longer relevant, since Pride week is over - the logo was rainbow colored for the week. :) )

A bit more Stephen, 'cause it's relevant.

I am just itching to open this book on finance, but I'm busy with other intern-stuff today at work - and I can't wait to read that, I can't wait to study for the GRE for goodness' sake, because it's stuff I'm interested in - and all of this nerdliness reminded me of another great quote:

There are young men and women up and down the land who happily (or unhappily) tell anyone who will listen that they don’t have an academic turn of mind, or that they aren’t lucky enough to have been blessed with a good memory, and yet can recite hundreds of pop lyrics and reel off any amount of information about footballers, cars and celebrities. Why? Because they are interested in those things. They are curious. If you are hungry for food you are prepared to hunt high and low for it. If you are hungry for information it is the same. Information is all around us, now more than ever before in human history. You barely have to stir or incommode yourself to find things out. The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.
Picture the world as being a city whose pavements are covered a foot deep in gold coins. You have to wade through them to make progress. Their clinking and rattling fills the air. Imagine that you met a beggar in such a city.
‘Please, give me something. I am penniless.’
‘But look around you,’ you would shout. ‘There is gold enough to last you your whole life. All you have to do is to bend down and pick it up!’
When people complain that they don’t know any literature because it was badly taught at school, or that they missed out on history because on the timetable it was either that or biology, or some such ludicrous excuse, it is hard not to react in the same way.
‘But it’s all around you!’ I want to scream. ‘All you have to do is bend down and pick it up!’ - Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles

Ah, yes. But time? Where can I find the time...

Sometimes you just gotta.

Up at 5:45, running in the park by 6:05 - fog everywhere, including between my glasses and my face (I really should learn to just go with my contacts in the morning if I'm going to run that early), and music everywhere from Metallica to Lady Gaga since my iPod was on complete random. During the last leg of my run, there were about six sprinklers going across the path in front of me - a good forty feet of path where I would be drenched at every step. I could have gone around. I could have gone a different route, changing the path I had in my head. Or I could go straight through it. And that was what I did. I got hit with water all across my torso, on the side of my head, and my bare legs - my hair was hilariously two-toned when I got back to the house, and my glasses were a mess, but I couldn't stop smiling from that incident all the way back to the house.

And then, after I showered and was getting my things for the day in order, I put on an old episode of TNG, and you know what, it was just a lovely morning.

Also, I just got handed The Handbook of Structured Finance. My assignment is to read the first 5 chapters this weekend. I'll actually get some background on this stuff I'm working on - my boss sent me a complicated algorithm the other day to "get familiar with" (I've said this before, but I have NO background in econ, and some incredibly theoretical background in probability, but not much) - and he saw my face and said, "You look like I just tossed you into the arena with a spoon. I'll give you some background on Friday!!" And he did. And I want nothing more but a comfy library chair, some nice notebook paper, lots of pens, and time to read. :)

According to Athena

.... they don't do many pirouettes or arabeckses (yes, indeed) in her ballet class, but those are her favorite things to do. We had a lovely discussion about ballet while I was eating dinner and she was twirling around the kitchen in her tiny ballet slippers. After dinner, she informed me that she was supposed to help with dishes sometimes, but doesn't often do it, and asked if she could help as I washed up.  I replied that she most certainly could, and she scampered upstairs to get her tiny pink stool that would help her be tall enough to reach the sink.

We stood there together and of course, instead of 2 minutes, it took 10, and instead of me cleaning the five or so dishes that needed to be cleaned, I had to mop up the soap on the floor, the counter, and the excess water on the other table where she had taken the dishes to dry them off (needing to put them down on a surface to do so - I forget how much use I make of my hands. It's pretty incredible how dextrous we are). In the end, she was drying a cutting board off in the sunroom next to the kitchen and looked at me and said, "Hm. It's kind of like I'm your servant." To which I responded, "Ohho? Even though every day, your mom makes your lunch, washes your dishes, picks up your clothes - does that make her your servant?" And she got this crooked smile that she's terribly good at, and then responded that no, of course, her mom wasn't her servant. But she didn't HAVE to help me with the dishes, which is what made what was happening tonight an act of servitude. There was no arguing with her.

After that, we were discussing a pile of pennies that she was offering to me as "my change", though my change from what purchase I could not tell you. I didn't wish to take them from her, but she wouldn't simply take them back, so I decided and proposed that I ask her a series of questions, and for each correct question, she would get a coin back. These questions included:

1. What is 2+5? --- "4." "Are you sure?" "Uh... 5."
 2. Who's the president? "Obama. That's an easy one."
3. If you are eating eggs (as she likes to do), how does your mom make them? "She needs raw eggs. "
"yes, and what does she do with them?" "She cooks them." "But how?" "With.... a pan." "Yes, and?" "And...water!"
4. Where were we when you met my sister and my dad a few weeks ago? "Santa Cruz!"
And finally, finally, this became clear:
5. Alright, last question. Your Grandpa Bob and my Grandma Barbara - your Aunt Barbara - how do they know each other? "They---they're sister and brother!"

After that, I read a fairy tale, then Samuel made up one ("Once upon a time, in a big city, bigger than New York, Tokyo, and Earth, there was a school called Banana Lana, and a llama came to Banana Lana,...." - it got increasingly difficult to understand), and when his story started to ramble, we had a countdown to the ending. It ended with a chess game and people getting to sleep in until noon. The plot was - perhaps we can call it postmodern. Then Athena took a turn, and there was very little content to her story (a princess, a ginormous kingdom, some peasants) and then there was a man named Mr. Wiener and I lost both of the children to positive peals of laughter for a while just at the sound of his name, and then when Samuel and I had the 10-second countdown to the end of her story, it went like this: "And -- and then -- and  AND HAPPILY EVER AFTER!" And we all giggled at the incompleteness of everyone's stories before going up to bed.

San Francisco

Taken by one of my coworkers:



Gorgeous.

Please read.

You know I have a fondness for Stephen Fry. This blog post of his is as beautifully crafted as his other written works, but with a touch of something else that just makes it incredible. And absolutely, absolutely worth reading.

Next Day

I did survive the GRE. I didn't like it, but I survived. It felt a little bit like being arrested when I got to the tiny room in the huge building where all the testing was going on. I knew not to bring a bag or anything since you're not allowed to carry anything into the space, but even the tissue in my pocket couldn't come in with me and my watch had to wait outside! I'm surprised they didn't put us in jumpsuits. Then, after being wanded (yes, like at the airport - I saw someone else being fingerprinted, but they didn't do that to me), I walked into the room full of cubicles and computers (the test is computerized now) and was asked to wait by the door as the administrator walked over to unlock my cell - I mean, my computer. Then I sat down, put on some headphones they had provided just so I didn't have to listen to the sighs and pencil-scratchings and eye-rubbings from the cubicles around me. Six sections, a one-minute break between each, each between 25-35 minutes in length - I ran out of time a few times, felt a little silly quite frequently, and arrived four hours later, dazed, back in the room where I could pick up my watch, sign out, and leave.

Since it's computerized, I got my scores for 2/3 of the test already, everything except the analytical writing section. And did I blow it out of the water? No. But were my scores respectable? Yes. I hate standardized tests. I remember getting one of the lowest scores on the SATs out of my college-brat friend group in high school (in fact, my SAT score wouldn't have been enough to get in to Mills - I had to take the ACT instead), and I've shuffled up a little in the ranking since then, and normal tests (i.e. ones you take on material you have been taught in a course) are fun for me. The real deal will be October's Math Subject GRE. The plus side there? I'm interested in that material. I'm not interested in which two words best fit the sentence with two blanks. :P

(I had a funny moment as I left the test- the last screen that pops up shows you your numerical scores on the sections where there was bubble-filling in instead of writing, so two numbers just glare at you from the screen, and of course, you have no idea what they mean. What percentile? What - just what? And of course, I thought: "I'll just look it up on my phone once I'm out of the room." And then - realization: my phone is five blocks away, in the office where I dropped off all my stuff (since I couldn't take it into the testing facility) - at least ten minutes in which I could think about the test, but not do anything about it. It was kind of funny. It reminded me of a poster I saw downstairs in this work building: "In the event of a fire, exit the building BEFORE tweeting about it.")

In other news, I've been working for Primarq for almost two months now. I don't really know how that happened. I'm also about to move to Berkeley - I feel like I just started getting used to San Francisco. The nice thing is, I'll still get to come here to work every day. And I do love the East Bay. 

Alright. I have to go back to my algorithm now. Risk assessment is fascinating.

DOMA no more.

Seems like a good day to wrestle that GRE to the ground. I'll check in later.

"This is quite the three-pipe problem, Watson."

For me, rather "This is quite a three-pen problem!" Three colors of pen, cup of coffee, happy as a clam. This morning's task: understanding logit transformations, building predictive algorithms, enjoying the San Francisco drizzle (there was a beautiful rainbow during my run this morning!).
 Time to dive in! Oh, shiny macbook, you are nothing to a piece of narrow-lined notebook paper.

(speaking of the shiny macbook, it's kind of hilarious the relationship I've had with mine recently. I updated to the newest version (10.whatever) and I'm thrilled at the new shortcuts, multiple desktops, etc. that it is capable of, but it occurred to me yesterday (when it was whirring and heating up while juggling two desktops, four excel documents, and quite a few firefox tabs) that basically what I've done is not exchange my donkey for a stallion, but rather put a bunch of shiny new chain mail on the donkey. It still groans and grumbles but looks great while doing whatever it is I make it do. Underneath, 'tis the same creature! I promise I'll put you out to pasture as soon as I can. Until then, trusty friend, bear with me.)

Sunday Happenings.

It was a rather gray day today - but I kind of liked the fog and drizzle.

I went and caught up with a friend today in a café as we both studied -she for Organic Chemistry, me for this GRE schtuff, as I said before. (I was just now doing some of the review problems for the baby math - I can't remember the last time I actually thought about a "Train A leaves city Blah at exactly Whocares o'Clock" problem. It was kind of funny listening to my thoughts. I was definitely deciding which it was actually important for me to work through in the problem sections and at one point, I read "What is the value of f(x)=2x^5 - 72x + 5 if x=-3?" And my head just said, "NO." My brain cracks me up. I think I can do that stuff. ;) As per usual, I've realized my biggest issue is reading the whole damn problem. "Don't be hasty, " a wise old tree once said. I need to tell myself that multiple times a day!)

After that, I came back home and Diana taught me how to make mozzarella!

Curds and whey. What the hell was Little Miss Muffet thinking?

Stretching the cheeeeeese. :) (Gloves because it's quite hot at this stage! And delicious as well. :D )

Cute little ball-o-cheese. I think I overstretched it a bit, so it's not that silky-smooth, melty masterpiece we can buy for ridiculous amounts of money, but it DOES taste like mozzarella and is perfect for salads (caprese or other) and sandwiches!

Then, I got some help playing guitar from Athena. She's such fun to jam with! In addition, I witnessed again today one of the many surprises of nature (and one that I know well): the ability of younger siblings (sisters, in particular) to annoy the crap out of their older siblings and to excel at this particular ability more than any other. Just look at that smile!

I went a bit crazy with my salad for the evening, topping it with that lovely, lovely cheese! (Kale, tomatoes, snap peas, carrots, sunflower seeds, raisins, blueberries, cucumber, red pepper flakes, balsamic vinegar, olive oil. Yummmm.)

Then I started putting together my lunch for tomorrow and my weekly container of granola to take to the office. I love making lunches. When I was a wee thing, I used to ask my parents what was for breakfast when they tucked me in to bed at night. I haven't changed much.

And these purple carrots are possibly the coolest things I've ever seen.

The nice part about thinking it was Saturday for almost all of Thursday last week is that I woke up really thinking I was going to have to go to work today, which wasn't the case. Alas, it is tomorrow, but - I like my work, so that's alright. This week will be unorthodox with the big test in the middle anyway, so I think it'll go quickly. Time's going quickly in general.

And now, I'm going to end the day the way I started it: lying in bed while watching an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Make it so.

Glimmer of hope on a rainy day.

There's something about not being in the environment that one is used to that makes one think "I don't know jack." I've been feeling that way frequently lately - every time I open one of my GRE study books. I feel incompetent and silly and like I'm in completely the wrong place - I seem to conveniently, in my self-unfriendly thoughts - forget that for the last four years, I've done little else but math, in multiple languages and multiple locations. I don't know why I feel like graduation ripped away my confidence - I don't think that's the effect it's supposed to have. But today, crammed into the corner of a café in the Inner Sunset on a rainy day, with a great friend that I'm getting to know better, I was reading some of my "baby math" for the general GRE this Wednesday, and they cover just a teensy bit of probability on page 80 of the math review. And I just felt myself smiling again, remembering Wahrscheinlichkeitsräume and the rest. I don't quite feel like my old self yet, but it was fun to feel the flicker of my studying-self, the one that didn't want classes to end, the one that got up ridiculously early to be able to take my time with math homework just for the hell and pleasure of it, the one who slept with a manifold calculus book next to my pillow. I'll find my way back.

Back at the Sunset Homestead.

So, I walked in to the smell of dinner cooking and come giggles from upstairs. Soon, all five of us were in the kitchen - Samuel and Athena bouncing tennis balls against the cabinets while Diana wove her way between the children and the bounces and put together dinner, and jet-lagged Patrick told us about what was going on in the world.

A little while later, I happened to be alone in the kitchen and Athena was at the table in the sunroom behind me. She said something to me and I turned around and something about the expression on her face, the lighting from the window, and the angle at which she was seated - she looked like a teenager. I just had a flash of what she might look like ten years from now, and I was so struck by it and so curious that she had to say my name a few times to snap me out of it. She was smiling to herself and swirling a spoon in her bowl of yogurt, making a clinking noise and then telling me that someone was at the door (the clinking being the doorbell, you see?) and I laughed at her and told her no one was at the door, she giggled, and asked me to come over. I walked over to see her, and we were talking about the lack of a delivery man at the door and she said, "Want to know something?" I said, "Sure."

And she looked at me, tiny finger raised, and said, "You have no idea!" and poked her finger at my stomach. She then started to crack up and double over with laughter, and I looked down to see that she had dipped her finger in her yogurt before poking me, so I had a streak of vanilla yogurt around the belly-button area of my shirt. As I giggled with her and called her sneaky, she laughed and I started to walk to the sink to clean it off. When I was done, I heard "Hey Emily!" "Yes?" I said, turning around. She grinned. "Where'd you get that dirty shirt?"

She's going to be a force to be reckoned with.

East Bay

So, I've been staying with a friend (+more friends I'm getting to know) in Berkeley for the weekend. After working yesterday in the East Bay, in the evening I caught up with an old friend and then came to stay at this friend's house. And I just can't get over how wonderful these people are. My friend Sara was the one I was planning on staying with, and it turns out her neighbors (close friends of hers) were going camping this weekend, so they left me a key to their apartment and she told me that I could just come and go whenever I pleased. I walked in to this place and feel welcome even though no one is here - and for the first time in forever, I let myself be completely un-plugged last night and just went to bed. No books, no computer, no phone, no anything - I did play a bit of guitar, though, and that felt lovely. And slept with a French Bulldog on the bed. (She is terrible at posing for pictures, though, so I can't give you one - I'll give you one of Kai, though, the other fella who's in this house, as well as the others next door.)

So, I slept. And unlike the rest of the week, I didn't get up at 5:45. I slept until 7:15, and at 8 went with Sara to the workout class that her boyfriend teaches - push-ups, lunches, crazy army crawls and planks, and then we came back and threw all four dogs into the back of a car and drove up into the hills to Tilden Park, where we went for a hike. I've been part of this hiking adventure before with my friend Kate, who introduced me to Sara, and I can't enjoy it any more. I am SUCH a dog person and having a smoothie filled with greens and all kinds of seeds on my way up a steep hill, then walking with a pack of dogs in the morning is just blissful.

Kai.

Rosie.

Kamaji, after our hike.

After our hike, we got back to the house and I met another of Sara's neighbor/friends, a little 1-year-old named Soren who - this blew my mind - is running and walking down stairs already (okay, the latter with a helping hand just in case) and really, really trying to play the ukelele and play fetch with dogs who aren't really interested in fetch. But whenever something didn't work out, Soren would just start to chuckle and then laugh and I couldn't help but smile.

After we saw him, Sara and I made this recipe that we've heard our friends talk about. Not so much a recipe I suppose as just a way to drink coffee. It sounds weird, be ready for it. You take a spoonful of butter and a spoonful of coconut oil, put it in a blender with some freshly-made coffee, and whirr it all together. It's so deliciously creamy and rich and mind-bogglingly lovely. I was so doubtful about how it would taste, and then - MAN. And we had that with pieces of my favorite kind of bread (so-dense-it-could-be-a-weapon-rye) and homemade marmelade, sat in the sun and watched the dogs sleep, and wondered why we'd ever go back to work again.

And now I'm getting ready to head back over the water. I have the general GRE this week which I feel pretty prepared for and ought to be still studying for the real one, but I think a day to sit back and breathe was more than needed. Isn't that what summer's about?

--

People are just so kind. I feel so welcomed by this community and more grateful than I can adequately communicate in person. Sometimes, humanity rocks.

What happens when I exercise early in the morning:

So, I went swimming today at about 6:45 for the first time in forever and as I was on the bus back, I was thinking about breakfast, as I am wont to do post-exercise. "Self, what do you want for breakfast?" And the response- a frequent one after my morning runs as well- "STEAK. ". :)

And now I'm off to the East Bay for the day- looking forward to it!

Correction!

Athena is 4, and will be 5 on August 1. I was mistaken! Oops oops.

Another moment to come tumbling down to reality.

So, today there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the city for various work reasons, but it was actually quite lovely to not be connected to a computer for the whole morning (on that note, I realized that where I used to come home and want to hang out on the computer doing - well, nothing really, games, internet, etc - but now? Computer is for work. When I get home it sits in my bag!) and it was a gorgeous day in the city. But, after walking around and being out in the sun all morning, I was pretty dead when I got back to the office. (In addition, this morning, at least three times I was convinced it was Saturday and then realized it was only Thursday, then forgot again and realized again, etc…) So, that was my morning, and then I went to get myself a cup of tea, slightly more than slightly grumpy and tired, carrying a coffee cup with some water from a few hours ago and whooooops! My ankle spun and I splashed water on to the floor and caught myself quickly. I did the traditional cursory glance to see if anyone had seen me, straightened up, started to walk, and my heel slipped AGAIN.

At this point, I had reached the coffee machine and patiently tried not to flip out as I felt embarrassment coming, and also tried not to worry about the fact that I was about to start walking again but with HOT liquid in my cup - "good grief, you can't even WALK?" said my head - so I tippy-toed off the linoleum surface and back to the carpeted area where I trusted my heels to be back on the ground, got back to the office, crossed one leg over the other -- well, no ****, my shoes were slippery. I'd lost the bottom of one heel. Good grief - a footwear mishap I didn't even know could happen. But, I put it back on and I think it'll hold until I can get ahold of some superglue…

So, I think it's about the end of the work day for me now. I'll check in soon!

Catch with Samuel at Crissy Field

Oh, the shenanigans. There were races. There were bouncing tennis balls. There were contests of throwing rocks into the ocean, where I won the jewel crown (the top prize from Athena), and then was suddenly under arrest and consequently escorted by my 5-year-old jailer to a statue that served as a dungeon, where I was informed in great detail that I would "Sleep on a bed made of garbage cans, have to make dresses out of dog food, and use an old statue as a pillow". This extremely creative warden was a force to be reckoned with. (The warden's mother was also taken into custody a bit later, but she got to have a dress made out of gold and silver AND (so California) was going to get kale salad every day. Go figure.)

Then there was some more races (walking and running) and some discussion as to whether or not I am actually Superman. I'll let you think it over.

Why tossing a tennis ball back and forth is so damn satisfying, I'll never know, but Samuel and I both know how blissful it is.

Another fun walk.

So, last night, we all went for another walk. It was a bit windy and chilly near the beach, so I lent Athena my leather jacket - and hilarity ensued. :) Unfortunately, Samuel was still a bit cold without such a nice jacket to wear. Soon, Athena realized that the far-too-long sleeves were really good for slapping anything that moved. So, we had a round of slap-tag that followed, and Samuel joined in and we raced around the tulip garden (sans-tulips at this time of year) near Ocean Beach and I was vanquished by my two foes but that was alright, because by the end of it, Samuel wasn't cold anymore. Success!

Turmoil on the bus.

This morning, I was sitting on the bus and listening to my podcast when I saw across the crowded aisle a woman of about my age. She seemed to be in a good enough mood (enough for the crazy commute time of the morning) and then she got a phone call. I watched her face fall and her eyes start to fill with tears. She hastily hung up and sat there, in the middle of the crowded bus.

If anyone hadn't watched the change in her face, they might not have known that she was upset, but I saw it all happen and I could tell. I wanted so much to just put my hand on her shoulder, or even wish her a good day as we got off the bus at the same stop, but I was already transgressing societal guidelines enough to keep looking at her as often as I did. More than once our eyes met and I was so embarrassed, and then so completely angry that I needed to be embarrassed for caring about another person.

I really don't like the fact that this culture lays out all these rules. If you don't know someone, a stranger, they may as well not be a person. You're only allowed to talk to and be there for people that you know, unless extreme circumstances present themselves. Man. It's so isolating. And it frustrated me this morning.

And now, without much of a transition, here are a few pictures from a walk we took last night:

--

There really is nothing like having a child ask you to tuck them in at night. Wow. 

:)

I went to visit the office of my dad's cousin (the man whose family I am staying with for the month) and while we waited for people to run various errands, his daughter, Athena, and I were drawn to the whiteboard.

 

I don't know if she'll be a mathematician (she wasn't too interested in the zero divisors I was explaining to her mom), but it was fun to share the space nonetheless. :)

(I should add,  Ms. Athena just came in here a few minutes ago to see me listening to The Hobbit soundtrack and studying for the GRE, and when I explained what I was up to, she laughed and said, "But you don't have any exams - you're DONE with COLLEGE." And left before I could explain the complexities. :) )

A few things have happened:

So, I got some important books in the mail - books that will be help me get ready for the massive exams in my future (some of the many exams in my future):

And they all had this smarmy guy on the cover. Ugh.

So now they look like this instead! :)

And I went to a fun and funky diner today with a friend downtown,

And the night before I had this glass of Sangria

At this restaurant on the roof of a building in the Mission

 

This last picture is of the doorknob at my work. Each morning it makes me smile. I thought maybe you'd like to see it! It's so huge and crazy, yet it makes me feel awesome when I walk into the building!

That'll teach me to take life too seriously.

There were two instances yesterday during which I realized - rather, life made me realize - that I was taking things too seriously. The first moment was when I walked into the office in the morning, a little out of sorts for some reason or another, and was in one of the modes when I was just worrying about what would become of my life and as I was musing, I walked into the bathroom, looked into the mirror and do you know what life delivered? A pimple DIRECTLY ON THE TIP OF MY NOSE. I stood there and laughed for a good minute at the ridiculousness of it all and when back into the office in a much better mood.

It turned out to not be such a good day and in the afternoon, I went for a run once I got home to shake off the residual work day feelings. I was in quite a down mood, listening to down music, and fancied to myself that I was running away in some way as I wove my way between the trees in the park. Just as I was feeling some tears creep into my eyes I LEGITLY SWALLOWED A BUG mid-stride. Again, this caused disbelief and laughter and I paused on the trail to giggle for a while.

So, let's not take life too seriously, okay? Okay. Or maybe the lesson is just that I should close my mouth when I run.

A fun passage from a book:

I found the book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke on the bookshelf here and picked it up on Friday evening - now I'm 100 pages in and really quite enjoying it, and this passage here made me giggle aloud at its relevance - here you go!

"And how to describe a London party? Candles in lustres of cut-glass are placed everywhere about the house in dazzling profusion; elegant mirrors triple and quadruple the light until night outshines day; many-coloured hot-house fruits are piled up in stately pyramids upon whiteclothed tables; divine creatures, resplendent with jewels, go about the room in pairs, arm in arm, admired by all who see them. Yet the heat is over-powering, the pressure and noise almost as bad; there is nowhere to sit and scarce anywhere to stand. You may see your dearest friend in another part of the room; you may have a world of things to tell him - but how in the world will you ever reach him? If you are fortunate then perhaps you will discover him later in the crush and shake his hand as you are both hurried past each other. Surrounded by cross, hot strangers, your chance of rational conversation is equal to what is would be in the African desert. Your only wish is to preserve your favourite gown from the worst ravages of the crowd. Every body complains of the heat and the suffocation. Every body declares it to be entirely insufferable. But if it is all misery for the guests, then what of the wretchedness of those who have not been invited? Our sufferings are nothing to theirs! And we may tell each other tomorrow that it was a delightful party." (pp. 46-47)

Haha. A party in London or any of a number of bars in Oakland? I think it's safe to say that this trend of human nature will continue!

I found the ocean at the end of the road.

I was on my own tonight and so I decided to go for a walk. I knew that the ocean was at the end of this road that I'm living next to, but I had never been there- I've seen the Pacific lots of times, but not from the Sunset, which is what they call the neighborhood I'm living in.

On the way, I saw some remarkable California flora.

And it was starting to get dark as I walked, urged along by a prowling bank of fog.

And finally, I got to the sand dunes and the water. The wind was no joke:

 

At this point my glasses were coated with flog and blowing sand, but it didn't really matter. I was listening to a podcast about philosophy and physics and it all seemed rather fitting.

It was quite a lovely walk. I haven't even attempted to capture any of Golden Gate Park - instead, how about anyone who is interested just come and visit? Tell you what - if you make the effort and come here, I'll pick a lovely route to walk and provide the food for a picnic.

Waiting for the bus in the morning.

Just a bit of humor.

So far, today is a lovely day - started with a run in Golden Gate Park as I have the last few days, I'm getting used to my commute and the general rhythm of my day (gosh, I love routines), feel useful in the office, and it's about to be the weekend. I feel I'm getting settled, at least for the summer.

That was an incredibly brief summary of how my first few days of work have been, but alas. Such is what I have time for today. I can direct you to something else for your amusement, however:
Check this out. And then just spend some time on that website. It'll make you smile!

(P.S. I know that comic isn't exactly uplifting, but it's so accurate that it's funny! Don't worry - I'm not down and worrisome today. :) )

Chains of meaning.

I just went down the rabbit hole with wikipedia, starting with the page for a value called Beta (ß) which is defined as the covariance of two things divided by the variance of one of them (two specific things, but we'll leave that be for now) and to understand it, I went through covariance to variance to volatility, to standard deviation of a logarithmic return - and at the end of this path, I found R=Pe^(rt), a blessed formula I know from calculus and from there, I went back up those chains and now I know what ß is. Minds work in funny ways.

Simple but awesome.

Nothing quite like feeling that you've been helpful. It's kinda awesome. I feel like my being in the office today actually helped a bit. Hah! Not bad for an intern.

Traveling

Where do I even start? I’m on the plane between Phoenix and San Francisco. As usual, on a day of travel like today, I’ve had so many thoughts that I want to share. Some come to my head in nice phrases that I could easily put on paper, and others hover frustratingly out of reach of words.

I suppose to start, a plan hatched itself this morning in the car ride from Meadville around 4:30 this morning – a plan to perhaps go to Yosemite sometime soon and hike Half Dome. I did that hike with my family when I was about 11 years old and I would really, really like to go back. As is true with most things in my childhood, I sort of feel like I haven’t really been there – I need to se it again with these eyes. I suppose they’re not new eyes, but they feel like it. Older, I guess. I had a discussion once with a friend when we discussed the process of aging and maturing. And we decided that one ages with steps and plateaus- all of a sudden, you feel much older. You wake up one morning, or blink in the middle of the day, and realize that you are older than you were a few months ago, or maybe even weeks. It doesn’t have to be a huge change, but it’s noticeable. And these don’t happen at regular intervals – but they do happen. And then you live in your new stage for a while until you stop noticing all the time that that mode of being is new. It becomes normal, and then later, it all happens again. I am assured by some elders of mine that aging later in life happens the same way – it’s probably not true that you don’t need reading glasses one day and do the next, but that’s how it feels, apparently.

A glass of water with no ice, a coffee with two creams and no sugar. My standard sustenance on a plane. Well, that and about six bottles of water. Aisle seats are my friends… I really have flown quite a lot in my life so far.

That was one of the things I wanted to tell you about. This week, there was a lot of packing going on – not just for me, but also for my dad, since he is about to move to California. So, about two days ago, I went through my room at his house from top to bottom and among numerous embarrassing things like buttons with silly (excuse me, COOL – or so I thought) phrases on them and poetry I wrote when I was 15, I also found at least twenty different to do lists. I didn’t know I was still so similar to my school-age self. Anyways, one of them was entitled “The Don’t Freak Out List” – and it detailed everything, absolutely everything, I needed to know for my first trip to Germany, right after I got back from Thailand. When I say everything, I mean: “Check in, hand in bag, go through security, find gate (read the signs, self! Ask for help if you need it!)…” and so on and so forth. I could probably find my gate in the Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Frankfurt airports blindfolded by now. I remember that first flight, too. Funnily enough, things went wrong – missed my plane in Amsterdam because of a late departure, my suitcase didn’t show up for a week – and when I got on to the plane and heard people around me speaking German, I felt like such a badass. It was such an adventure.

Check out this transition. When I was on that plane, I had a book with me – a book of Sudoku puzzles that I bought in Thailand. I carry that book with me every time that I fly. (Side note: I am so blissfully content to listen to my music and do Sudoku on plans. It doesn’t entertain me like that when I’m not flying, but when I am, I’d rather do that than sleep, eat, watch a movie, or talk to anyone, period. It’s just perfect for some reason. But sometimes, I like to write blog entries while flying. J )

Today, I got out that book to work on a Sudoku on the first flight and a piece of notebook paper fell out of it – this is a very common appearance with any of my possessions. Anything that I have once owned probably has a pen, pencil, or piece of paper in it. This piece of paper had the thick, slightly faded pencil writing of mine that indicated to me it was from before my year in Germany (when I began writing with pens, and very fine-tipped ones at that). I stared at the paper reading things like “Research: who do you go to, how do you begin? Teaching: it’s good to have experience.” Such non sequitur comments suggested that these were my notes from something that I was listening to. I turned it over, and it was from a panel discussion at Carleton, during my summer research program. I was listening to former participants in the program talk about their experiences at graduate school and I remember a battle fighting in my chest.

Academia is so seductive. (This sentence is an extremely edited version of quite the pontification on my relationship to academia. Oy vey. Sometimes, it is necessary and preferable that one edits oneself!)

The point is, I went to Carleton right before a very key year in my life. It was right before my year living in Mainz – I can almost not talk about it as a “year in my life” since it was so very recent. Let me do away with the rambling. I listened to those PhD’s talk and felt split down the middle between social, emotional, and save-the-world desires, and the desire to work and work and think and think, and wind up just like them in a few years.  And that second path really faded away during that year. I wasn’t sure until this very semester that I even could do it. I didn’t believe in me.

Well, I have no answer for myself yet. I haven’t “done it” yet, if you will. But I’m on that path. This last semester helped me realize how much I really do want it! And I’m taking steps to do so. And this growing-up thing is happening so fast. I feel that now when I talk to people I don’t know, there’s a fifty percent chance they will see me as a ‘youth’, if you will, and fifty percent as an adult. “I got my degree in math,” I told the man next to me on my first flight (he initiated a conversation about my summer plans) and it just hit me again.

Well, if you made it through that, congratulations. Get yourself a piece of chocolate. I have a feeling this summer is going to be pretty awesome.

Time in Meadville drawing to a close.

I'm sitting in the den of my mother's house, looking at the setting sun through the trees in the woods in our backyard. My hometown really is beautiful. I didn't appreciate it much growing up. But even on these humid summer days, when I walk and see the rhododendrons in full bloom and the green everywhere, it's really quite stunning.

It's been good to be home. I've seen people that I haven't had the chance to see in years. And it was a necessary pause after the end of the semester.  It's only now just struck me that when I fly back to California next week, I'm really going to be starting something new and something rather alone compared to my normal life the past few years. For the first time in four years, I'm going to move to a place where I will not be surrounded by family or friends. True, I have some friends that are in the Bay Area, but living in the same city is not the same as living in the same apartment or on the same campus. I'm looking forward to the summer - to working, learning, getting to know San Francisco - but I'm a little scared, too.  Scared in that way that just makes me want to do it, you know? To start.

And I'm about to! In the meantime, I'm having tea with friends, watching Star Trek (yes, again. I did just see it last week. It was awesome the second time, too), catching up on Downton Abbey, and walking with my dog through the woods.

I'll write again soon.