All day, every day.

I learned how to say that in Hungarian yesterday, mostly just so I could explain how often I was learning Hungarian. Each evening, I plan something that I want to do in the morning before class - GRE studying, a run in the park, cleaning the living room, what have you. Then, I drag myself out of bed the next morning and can't think of doing anything but staring in to my cup of coffee and then working through the list of forty or so new vocabulary words and verb forms that I am supposed to study for that day's class. Then, I get to the language school and somehow a full day of learning goes by during which I make plans for the evening, like studying for the GRE, going for a run, hanging out with friends, etc - and when I get home, I am completely exhausted and usually manage to accomplish about 1/3 of my plans before going to bed.

That being said, I think I'm learning something. And last night, I went and had dinner with a lovely Hungarian family - and the mother and father in that family know my mother and father. My dad and this dad met in 83, which we realized was thirty years ago as we sat down to dinner. Since their meeting, both these two and my mother and father have met up in various cities (Budapest, London, Washington, DC) and I met their son who is my age the other day for a beer in the city. It was a bit surreal and positively lovely to be so kindly received into this family (and I have heard stories about my dad's two Hungarian friends my whole life) last night.

After dinner, they even had a Tokaj tasting - for, the dad explained, as much his own benefit as mine. We wanted to see if our layman tongues could distinguish at all between some of these wines. The other amazing thing is that Tokaj (a very sweet dessert wine from a particular region ((called Tokaj)) in Hungary) is something I have only ever heard of in books - I associated it with a fictional and dramatic world - and I got to drink it. It is very, very sweet and I do prefer red wines in general, but this tiny glass of pure gold liquid looked so gorgeous in front of me and I had a moment when I tried a small piece of deliciously crumbly blue cheese and though normally I more 'appreciate' such cheese than 'like' it, when I followed it with a sip of the Tokaj that ended up being my favorite of the three, my mouth understood wine and cheese and I was rather transported for a second. :)

Okay. So, now I have to start that routine I spoke of. Breakfast and rushing through new vocab. Oy vey. In the mean time, the escalators in this city are ridiculously steep and long and I've got some pictures here to show it - as well as a picture of the beautiful synagogue which is right near the languages school downtown.

Weekend, in brief.

It's a bit past midnight and I'm planning to be up by around six tomorrow, so I don't have much time. This weekend was good - I recuperated in many ways from the week, became more stressed out in a few other ways, but also had some good and exciting ideas. The actual math part of this program is getting closer and closer, and I'm excited. I'm also getting to know other folks in the program here better, and that makes all the difference. I just returned from a fun potluck which had all the ingredients for a good time - good food, more people than chairs, some wine, and a temperamental fuse that righted itself just in time for both a stir fry to be made and cookies to be baked. On my way home, I walked through a movie set. It's cheaper to film things in Budapest than it lots of other places - this set looked quite old-timey, with a schnazzy old car and someone walking purposefully down a red carpet into a fancy hotel. Lots of cameras, lots of people, and I tapped someone on the arm briefly to ask if I could walk through and then used the brief pause in the action to scamper across. Kind of exciting!

Here are a few images of the weekend - starting with hiking in the Buda hills and looking down over the city, then a chairlift back down the mountain before an adventure to Memento Park, a rather desolate park area way south of the city on the Buda side where all the old Soviet statues that were in and around Budapest have been collected together and "made to stare at each other", as a friend's guidebook stated. A somber but rewarding visit.

Some pictures.

My front door - facing the courtyard of the apartment complex.

The first stop on the way up to the Citadel over in Buda, on August 20 - St. Istvan Day!

Looking back over to Pest.

That first stop below the citadel. A pair of girls were just sitting and playing cards between these huge columns, and I thought it was a neat contrast.

Pest.

And more Pest, across the Danube.

Pest to the right, Buda to the left. It's such a lovely river.

A fight between a man and a dragon (I believe the dragon represents facism) and above, the Liberation Monument - a woman holding an olive branch aloft in triumph, built in 1947.

The sky in front of the train station nearest my apartment on my way back home that day.

Fireworks above the Danube for St. Istavan!

And what Hungarian classes look like from my perspective.

Sometimes, you just have to admire who you are in this particular moment.

Today was a particularly long day at the language school. Friday, the first Friday this semester, feeling completely done and ready to rest my brain yet knowing that it wasn't even math that we were doing yet, and it was also only a three day week - and it was hot, I was tired, etc. It was a long day. And after that, I came home and went for a run and then made myself some dinner.


As I ate dinner, I wasn't thinking about anything else - I was absorbed in the moment and all of a sudden (about thirty seconds ago) I realized I was sitting, still sweaty from my run, cross-legged on a tiny kitchen stool at my tiny kitchen table in my tiny apartment in freaking Budapest, watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on my laptop and gesturing wildly with a peanut butter jar in one hand and a spoon in the other and giggling at Picard trying to flirt with someone on the show. And mid giggle, I froze - every now and then, you just have moments where you are out of yourself, looking down on what it is you are doing and they can happen quite suddenly, as this one did to me. But it made me smile.

I also wanted to take this chance to give you a taste of Hungarian, because it has some very interesting aspects, different from almost all other languages. Take for example the word "táska", or bag, pronounced "tash-ka", with 's' pronounced as 'sh', the first 'á' sounding like the 'a' in 'apple', the second like the 'a' in 'ball' (now you know what the accent is for!). Hungarian, our teacher told us on the first day, is a language without prepositions. I didn't believe him. Frequently, subjects aren't used in sentences either, since the subject is obvious given the verb form, but that's a different story. Back to the good ol' táska.

So, if you want to say that something is "in a bag", you add a 'ban' to the end of the word. (Actually, whether you add 'ben' or 'ban' to a word to indicate 'in' depends on something called vowel harmony, but I won't go in to that here). And, well, we have to change the second 'a' to an 'á' but don't worry - so, in a bag is: táskában. What about in MY bag? Well, we insert an 'm' just after the original word for bag, resulting in: táskámban. Pretty groovy, no?

You do this with most prepositions. For example, if I'm talking with my sister Rachel, I'm talking 'Rachelval' ("Én beszélek Rachelval"), 'val' being 'with'.  Living in ('on', technically) Budapest is 'Budapesten' ("én Budapesten élek"), whereas a book about Budapest is a book 'Budapeströl' - ("egy könyv Budapeströl"). :) Pretty neat stuff. Of course, in a crash course, you never coast, never feel like you are on top of things, because the next lesson has started already. Still, it's fun to look back three days ago on when I knew none of this. That makes it seem like a lot of progress!

"And they all lived happily ever after...."

"...until they died."

This is how our Hungarian teacher told us the staying goes in Hungarian. Two days into the language crash course now, and man, it is a crash course. About six-eight hours each day, language language language - you barely have time to review in your head what exercises you were just working on before it's time for a new one, and as someone who has learned foreign languages to the point of near-fluency, I can just how far I am even from understanding people on the street.

That being said, it's kind of fun. It's a new language! And it is so very different from anything I know or have heard before that even counting to ten is impressive to myself, and (Thank goodness!!) being able to read street signs and signs in grocery stores makes worlds of a difference.

And other than that, things are pretty good. I had a few new acquaintances/potential friends from the program over last night for wine and talking, where it turns out most of us had similar fears - how on earth do you compare math programs from different universities. Technically, we should all be one similar levels given what courses we've had, but if some schools are much harder, etc, or worse - what if there are some geniuses here? Ugh, that would be awful! But it seems like the kind of program some of those people would come to... Bottom line, none of us think that we will seem good in comparison to others. But I know that train of thought. That's what all the students at Carleton had before we started there as well. And there it turned out that we all had strengths and weaknesses in various areas and it basically balanced out, and the main reason we got into that program was that we were good at learning, so we could engage there easily. And, well, there was one genius. I guess you can't always avoid them. And I beat her at pool anyway, so there. :)

Okay. I'm going to finish my breakfast and head to my Friday classes. I am really excited for the weekend - I have some GRE studying to do as well as some pictures to upload here. In the mean time, I hope you find a hot beverage of your choice and enjoy this Friday.

Central Market - High prices, but lots of fun window-shopping. Paprika, veggies, MEAT, pickled things. And tourist trinkets upstairs.

So many pickled things.

Good ol' Danube. I like bridges.

After two days.

The last few days have been walking, walking, walking. Yesterday I met a bunch of the other BSM students (14-ish) and today I met the same amount, but with hardly any overlap, and there are still many to come. I think we number about 70 in total, which is quite large compared to some other math things I've done. But honestly, right now, I can hardly think about math. I keep forgetting that's what I came here to do.

The last few days have been for wandering, meeting people, and perhaps more than a little bit of introspection, which happens in foreign places, I believe. A lot of feeling separate from my own timeline, if that makes sense. Especially when you don't speak the language.

My knowledge is growing - I said 'thank you' convincingly enough at the supermarket today to get that response in return, in Hungarian instead of just a raised eyebrow. So far, my vocabulary consists of 'Yes', 'No', 'Thank You', 'Street', '(East) Train Station' [I'm most proud of this one for how fantastic is sounds - keleti pályaudvar], Where Is ___, and 'Paprika'. Which is just paprika. I kid you not. This stuff is hard. I know a lot more words by sight, but I don't know how to pronounce them yet. 'S' is pronounced like a 'sh', unless a 'z' follows it, in which case it is just an 's', an accent like this ´ does nothing but extend the length of the vowel, unless it is over an 'a', in which case it changes the sound entirely.... in addition to these phonetic rules and several others, if I am not wildly mistaken, there's a tonal aspect to this language as well. Not as complex as Thai or Chinese, but certain words are certainly always intoned the same way -- intoned? Is that a word? I'm a bit tired.

As I mentioned briefly in my first post, my landlady has been very, very welcoming. She made "lesco" (pronounced "le" as in 'let', "cho" - high tone on the 'le', low on the 'cho') for me - which is a dish with peppers, onions, sausage, and tomatoes, cooked kind of as a stew and served with special bread that is in stores now only because the day after tomorrow is St. Steven's Day (Szent István ünnepe). She showed me where the nearest grocery store was, walked me to the place where the math courses are held, and took me to the language school as well - on the way there by one mode of transit and on the way back by another, so I would be familiar with both. She walked me to the mall to find an adapter for my computer (all this traveling and I forgot mine this time. Ach, ja..) and in general just helped me a lot. And, I also got to hear her say a lot of words - mostly ones that there wasn't an English equivalent for (such as lecho and keleti pályaudvar, which is a metro stop name she wanted me to remember) and that's when I got the inkling about the tones.

So, the past two full days have just been composed of walking. Yesterday, the exploration with other students took about six hours all told, from Rottenbiller street (where many of us live, near the math school) to the river, and the area in between. Today, we explored a different side of the same area in the afternoon, another five-hour shindig, but in the morning - I got lost. Like, good and proper. I went on a run in the city park a few blocks away from my flat and, as this is an old city and not laid out quite in a grid, but rather with curvy, wibbly streets that turn different ways when they feel like it (and change names after intersections, and most streets are named after people, so everywhere you look there's an István or sometimes an István Street and an István Boulevard lead very different places) - so, all of a sudden, I didn't know where I was. But I navigated back easily enough, discovered that I did know some landmarks, and listened to quite a lot of my audiobook in the process. We may or may not have also gotten a bit lost in the afternoon, but I was in such a good mood, it didn't matter. Getting lost is a fabulous way to get to know a city if you are in good company, even if that company is just yourself.

The language school begins on Wednesday. 80 hours of Hungarian boot camp, and then I won't feel as much of an outsider. Many of the students here have never been abroad before. A few have - and one other student has already graduated, and thank goodness. I was feeling quite old yesterday. But actually, in a good way.

Here are a few pictures from my immediate vicinity:

The approximate location of my flat.

My breakfast, after the run-that-would-never-end. Or rather, walk-that-would-never-end by the second half of it.

Learning vocab with the help of vegetables. So, beet (cékla) and ginger (gyömbér). My kitchen is almost complete. I just need some kind of hot sauce and honey to feel totally at home.

I realize that I am not posting any pictures of landmarks or even of myself, or myself in front of landmarks. That's not quite the kind of pictures I tend to take, though I realize that might be what some people want to see.  Hopefully, there will be more people-pictures soon. I don't know these folks well enough yet. We'll figure it out.

Okay. After all the hours of walking and wandering today, it is time for me to rest.

Idyllic farm where my sister works.

The skies just before I flew into them.

Some of the summer harvest!

Last dinner out with my mom and sister - we paid with the contents of our restaurant-jar, which sits next to the kitchen sink and hasn't been tapped in a few years. ;) The waitress was patient with us.

The Danube, this afternoon. This photo is taken from Pest, Buda on the other side. Wow.

Briefly Put:

I got here. The flights were fine.  I've been wildly lucky all day with big, unexpected things, and unlucky with other unexpected small things, so the good outweighs the bad - an entire row to myself on the plane so that I could sleep, a beautiful day to arrive, a landlady who not only has a single apartment for me (I'm so happy to get the chance to live alone in my own space) but also had a hot traditional meal ready for me when I arrived and then gave me a walking tour of the area where the apartment is. My knowledge of German saved my ass in the grocery store tonight - I've never felt so rude and stupid in --- well, wait. Since Thailand, I guess, which is the only other time I've gone into a situation with so little prior knowledge. Rude because I can't even say thank you (looking that up now, don't fret) and stupid because of obvious reasons. But it's not stupidity, I know. It's not like I've been taught this before. And it'll get better. I learned three words just from being out today - the words for street, center, and square. This language is going to be fun.

Oh, and I came here to do math- I keep forgetting. I think I need to sleep for a week. Then I can think about math again.

P.S. I woke up "this morning" (last time I was in a bed) in Meadville. I had breakfast with an old school friend, had a dentist appointment, went to the gym, and helped my sister at the farm she's been working at all summer. I can't believe that was this same day. Traveling is weird.

Jetlag is when...

...you intend to get up at six, which would be three in the morning your time, but oversleep and get up at 8:30, which is not nearly as early as you wished but still feels like 5:30. *sigh* sometimes these things happen.

My first (also, second-to-last) day in Meadville went well - I saw people I liked (mostly my mother and sister, and that was a blast) and had some quite enjoyable chill time. I recovered from the delays and other flight debacles (the multiple personalities I referred to in the one post title option yesterday was the one that I assumed when I was in travel mode: i.e. wearing the heaviest clothes that I had like my huge leather boots and (faux)-leather jacket, and schlepping my guitar around. This, you see, gives me the air of a country singer, particularly with my long, blonde hair and stranded-ness in Phoenix. I didn't put on any accents this time (I don't know if you've been reading this long enough to recall the time I was so bored at SFO that I convinced a kind, young Berkeley student with my fake German accent that I was foreign enough for him to speak slowly to me for about a half hour and suffer through my accented responses and then wish me 'Auf Wiedersehen' when I went to board my flight to Frankfurt...), but I was stopped by a cowboy of sorts to talk about music for a while. Some people just seem stuck back in time.).

And today, I have a list - not as long as my arm. With my handwriting, it's as long as the palm of my hand, and it contains all the things I need to do today. So, I'm going to do that. In the meantime, I got some pictures from my friend of all of those dogs we have been hanging out with lately - it was such a great part of my summer, I wanted to give them one last hurrah here:

Thanks, @lightlymydarling, for the pictures.

Alright. I'll start on the list now.

There are so many titles for this post.

1.     Stranded in Phoenix

2.     AIMPD: Airport-Induced Multiple Personality Disorder

3.     Why Don’t It Ever Go Smooth?

In any case, all three refer to parts of my day of travel here. Yesterday deserves a small mention first, though.

During the day yesterday, I had about a hundred and a half things to do – from taking out compost to mopping the floor, bidding the chickens goodbye and packing up every little math book I had brought with me, putting gas in the car, and saying goodbye to my friends, to name a few. I had a few friends over during the day who hung around while I packed and did some of these other things and it was lovely – bittersweet, but lovely. Most of them either have more time left at Mills or have just moved permanently to the area and have jobs, etc. I started the day with the most Berkeley thing I could do  - an early morning walk in the fog of the Oakland hills, through the redwoods with my close friend and five dogs.

(I will mention briefly that we ran into another person, also with five dogs, who had lost three of her dogs down a ravine to what we figured must either be a raccoon or a fox that was proving quite the exciting target for her two Samoyeds and other mutt, and while the two dog owners (this woman and my friend) trudged down the hill to try to extricate the hounds from the battle/game (hard to tell with dogs and raccoons – though I’m sure it was a game to one side, and less so to the other)  I stayed on the trail with the dogs who had not gotten involved, trying to keep them in such a position. First, I had four dog leashes and little Matilda, the French Bulldog who has been featured here before, in my arms. Then there were two more leashes, and then two more, so I felt like I was in a silent film comedy scene, where every minute or so, another leash was handed to me until eventually, I was in the center of this mass of tails and leashes and snouts, all of those dogs yearning to go and join their friends and me defiantly trying to stay put, and keep a hold on the mighty Matilda (she had no collar and hence no leash. Like a leash could hold her anyway. She’s a force to  be reckoned with, all 20 lbs of her.) It was hilarious and in the end, all was well.)

So, then I was home and various friends stopped by to say hello and lend a hand. It’s amazing how much a person spreads out in a house over the course of a month and a half. After that was all done, it was evening and I was en route to drop off one friend at her apartment and another at the Bart station – when we all realized that we didn’t want to do that. So, we swung around and went to Café Gratitude for dinner – quite the Berkeley experience (but one that my friends hadn’t had yet!)  - I had raw, vegan strange creations, including a cup of carrot-ginger-beet-kale juice that made my friends nearly keel over (myself as well, actually, but I have my pride and actually rather enjoy that uncomfortable experience, and thus kept a solemn face). After that, again we were en route to said apartment and said Bart station when the highway exit was next, then it was upon us, and then we had just gone on driving. We drove on for another forty minutes or so, telling stories and crazy dreams we had had recently, laughing at each other until we cried, and finally exited the highway in the middle of nowhere, explored some strange farms around, then because the time demanded it, we got back on and drove back and actually did the various dropping-off that was supposed to happen. When we first set out from my house, I thought I was going to drop them off, go to the gym, and spend the rest of the night alone packing. I am so glad I didn’t get my way.

All of my goodbyes were good. Some were particularly sweet – like Carly last night, in front of her apartment she gave me a big hug and as I started to pull away, she said, “So, you have to text me, okay?” I was about to respond that of course I would, when she squeezed me tighter and said, “Like, when you get to the airport….and when you get to Pennsylvania…and when you get to Budapest, aaaand… when you’re there, how you are…. What food you made for dinner…if the people are cool…aaaad….” It went on and on and the entire time she wouldn’t let go. It was so nice!!!

This morning, my friend Miranda helped me use up some bananas, frozen berries, chia seeds, etc by creating a brilliantly delicious smoothie while we packed up the rest of the house, and everything got done at the very last minute, and then I was in a taxi to the airport.

That takes us almost up to date. Before I do the rest,  I think I will go and situate myself at my gate, just in case. We won’t be boarding quite yet – as you may have guessed, we were significantly delayed – but I want to be there all the same. I have time on the plane and there, I shall continue.

---

I am home now. On that second flight, I did not write more - I played sudoku and solitaire for the full four-hour duration. :) Part 2 soon!

Post Shakespeare

What a busy week. Family (nine of all told - cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, sisters, brothers, daughters, etc.) - we flock to the gorgeous Winchester Inn in Ashland, Oregon each year and see six plays in three days. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a rotating repertory theater company, which means that in their nine-month-or-so long season, they put on something like eleven plays, at least six of which are being performed in any given week, on three of the stages in the town. This means that the actors (the fantastic actors) are in at least two plays at any given time, and may very well play Hamlet in the afternoon, and a ruffian in Pirates of Penzance in the evening. Oh, yes - and they do put on non-Shakespeare plays as well.

This year, our six were:

Day One: The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare: a comedy, but a harsh one, about a woman who must be wed so her darling younger sister can be married, yet the elder sister is a bit rough around the edges, one might say), My Fair Lady (musical, premiered 1956 on Broadway, based on the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion - about a woman who wants to sound more like a lady and lose her rough street accent, and a gentleman who just can't wait to show off his talent as a voice teacher).

Day Two: The Tenth Muse (Here is what the festival website says about this play: "In a lively 18th-century convent in colonial Mexico, young nuns and servants unearth a hidden play written by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a nun and famous intellectual who died 20 years earlier after falling out of favor with the church. At night, behind the back of the Mother Superior, they act out Sor Juana’s ribald farce, revealing her blazing, blasphemous talent...and discovering their own complex bonds of sisterhood." I couldn't give a better description, and I'm still reeling at how incredible this play was. Totally unexpected, totally touching.) and Cymbeline (Shakespeare - this is one of the plays that isn't put on that often, and so we were excited to see it - though because of the wildfires in Oregon, there was a great deal of smoke in the air - so much so, that the outdoor performances on the Elizabethan Theater (modeled after the Globe) were in jeopardy so as to not harm the actors or the audience. Thus, we saw Cymbeline as a staged reading - no costumes, no makeup, no set, no blocking (hardly) - in the auditorium of the local high school. And you know what? It was brilliant. The actors were sitting in folding chairs in a semicircle on the stage, and that was the "backstage" if you will - if they were in the scenes that were happening at the moment, they stood up and acted, while rest sat back - so we saw all of their reactions to the rest of the acting (such as cracking up or being moved by the scenes), which we don't usually see. Plus, there was the added fun of improvised goofiness - a hair tie was substituted for a ring that had to be given back and forth, fight scenes were a good laugh for everyone, and it was still so believable - the love, the beheading, the scenery - it was kind of amazing to see their talent displayed that way. I definitely wouldn't trade that night for a show in the actual theater.)

Day Three: King Lear (Shakespeare. King goes mad. People die. *sigh* Very intense. Three and a half hours long. - Also where we get phrases like "Reason not the need," "Never never never never never," and the famous "Blow, winds, crack your cheeks" speech) and The Heart of Robin Hood (David Farr, a take on Robin Hood written for the Royal Shakespeare Company that tells of Robin Hood when he was stealing from the rich, but hadn't learned to do the other half yet - until he meets Maid Marion, in disguise as a man, who teaches him to have a heart as well. Compared to the other plays during the week, this was pure candy - dances, swinging on ropes, mistaken identity and multiple identities, sword fights, and a disney-esque villain, and it was simply lovely, and wonderful to end on.)

And then we drove home.

:)

And today, my sister and her boyfriend fly back to Meadville, my father back to work tomorrow, and myself to Meadville on Monday. Two more nights in Berkeley, three in Meadville, and then Budapest. Wow.

"You've got to hear this song, it'll change your life, I swear. "

I had dinner with friends tonight- math friends, school friends, people I met through other people but who have since become my friends, and even my sister and her boyfriend who happened to be around. And I felt so at home. I have to admit that uprooting myself again for this Budapest program seems a little crazy right now, right when I feel like I've found/made/come into a community, but I know it's a good thing to do. Even though I'll be back in Berkeley briefly next weekend, this was my sendoff of sorts. And it just made me so very happy. 

I think that's all for tonight. Finished my intership officially, though I'll continue working part-time during the semester. Off to Ashland for a week with family now. And then, off it goes. 

New Toy

I got some software today. Well, I've been configuring and reconfiguring my computer for days, backing it up, coaxing it, stroking it, and hoping that it doesn't implode (4 and a half years old in computer years, so, what, 89 in people years? poor thing) - and now I am getting to mess with this software. I went through all eight of the tutorials for the software. This is a big thing for those who know me - read directions? Pah. Instructions manual? For looooosers! I understand the limitations of this strategy. I really, really do! It's still my impulse, though.

So, this software is, without a doubt, quite an incredible tool. It helps me build algorithms, run complicated simulations for long periods of time, look at the probability distributions of the results, and zoom in really far to get nit picky about minute changes in various aspects of the models.

Well, that's what this software is capable of. I am still working out how to use it. And my day can pretty accurately be described as me bouncing around the office (in my head - I don't actually bounce. I try to keep it as professional as I am capable of. Funny things happen when I'm tired and slip up, though. Good thing we're a startup.) and yelling "I got a new toy! I got a new toy! It's so powerful! Do you know how many THINGS it can do???" and then, in this simulation in my head, I have an enormous machine with an enormous amount of buttons and I have an enormous amount of ideas of what I want to do with this machine - and I run to it, look around, get confused, run away, repeat, repeat, repeat and eventually run towards it so excitedly that I bang my head on a protruding arm and fall over, mumbling to myself about how incredible this tool is, if only I knew how to use it.

So, what's the lesson? I do want to jump in and model the huge project I've been building up to all summer but REALLY, I ought to start with baby tasks until I understand how to use this crazy thing. The great part is that even the pathetically simple tasks that I have to start with are still a lot of fun for someone like me.

Maybe it's because I'm a bit down tonight,...

... and therefore a bit impressionable, but I think everyone should watch this. Especially having graduated from Mills, I think this is incredible.

I had such an intense night. Interpersonal struggles, crazy thoughts in my own head, worries, realizations, and such an emotionally charged encounter with someone on the street.

A middle-aged African American woman came up to me as I was leaving a restaurant in Uptown, Oakland. "Excuse me," she said, "I'm so sorry to ask, but do you have a phone that can look stuff up?" I must have looked confused because, ironically, I had left my phone in my father's car not two hours before and had just been working out a way to get it back before he drove back to Santa Cruz. She was rather shaky, this woman, and added, "I'm so sorry for asking, - I swear I'm not gonna hurt you or anything."

Even this comment made me step back mentally. What kind of a screwed up world do we live in? This goes back to the strangers conversation I rambled on about the other day. That she would have to assure me, poor tiny white girl, that she wouldn't hurt me - that my automatic reaction would be to be worried about being hurt by her - just makes me sick.

In any case, I told her I didn't have my phone. She took a deep breath and all of a sudden, I could see that she was trying very, very hard not to cry. "Do you - do you know the number of a shelter for women? Somewhere I could --" and she had to stop to fight off the tears.

Everything in my head about the evening I had planned came to a screeching halt.

The story of the rest of my evening isn't something I will go into here, but I am so happy that I was the one she talked to. Moreover, I'm so happy that I listened. How many people had just walked past and not listened? I could have so easily not listened.

This world is complicated. By the end of our interaction, I was convinced it was no hoax, but the awful thing was that I kept wondering that for most of our conversation. 

This tears me up inside. I want to give a sweeping statement like, "Just on the chance that it might really be such a serious situation for a person, we should always listen and help." But isn't the need for food a serious situation, and don't I ignore people asking for money to buy food every single day on my way to work? How do you know when someone is telling the truth? How do you know if you are giving really to help a person or to assuage your own guilt at having one the social or genetic lottery? Does it matter which of those two it is?

Let me know if you have an answer.